Something bite my poor female!

[ek9vboi]

I have no idea what happened! I came home around 12ish and was looking at the tank with the moonlights on. Turn on the flash light real quick and oh my!!! A nice size chunk looks like its missing but its looks like it was bite or I really don't know. Here are pictures:

Keep in mind this is the female, although it doesn't host anything... well maybe my torch. It usually chases the male once in a while and its been a very long time since I have seen the two fight. For right now I managed to scoop her into the refugium to recover.

What I have in my tank:
10 hermits
1 cleaner
5 snails
Corals (LPS. softies, zoos, and mushrooms)

Nothing much that can do that IMO.

 

[bckane]

Eric wow..does look like a bite.......Question how can you tell if its male or female.?....both my tanks I have had 2 clowns and both times both tanks they would fight....the weird thing is I took the one clown from one tank that was the bully snd put him in the other tank with the other bully and they didnt fight.....now get this the 2 clown that were kind of shy started fighting,,,,one was beaten up so bad I had to put him in the big drain that leads to the ocean.......the next time I go to my LFS to get a clown fish do I need to left up his tail and look....

 

[Rogger Castells]

Eric, fishes do get at each other from time to time, it doesn't look as if it is nothing major, it will heal pretty quick, probably in a couple of days you won't be able to see anything. Make sure you seed some good quality food.

 

[jeffbrig]

<crocodile Dundee voice>

That's not a bite....this is a bite!

Fish can be very resilient....this guy made a full recovery, despite a severe injury.

 

[Ludwigia73]

female's bigger, male hosts in the anemone

 

[gjh289]

jeffbrig, what the heck chewed on your fish? Finish the story I'm now in suspense.

 

[jeffbrig]

Not 100% sure. He was in a bare 55g QT with a 2" flame hawk and two 3" tangs (yellow and purple). Most likely, it was the flame hawk, but I have no idea what would have provoked this attack.

We can take a hint, so we started feeding more meaty foods, and never had another problem.

Here's the same fish 4 months later....note the visible disruption to the scale pattern where the injury occurred.

 

[ek9vboi]

I am assuming its the female since I bought the two together and this one has been more dominate of the tank as well as gotten much larger then the other mate. Looked at the female today and it looks fine... healing up fine so i think it will be back in the tank in a few days. From the looks of it, it might have been another fight between the two clowns because the male and female have torn fins and so on.

 

[TorryRx]

I agree, as delicate as some fish are, others are extremely resilient, especially clownfish. When I first started, I got a maroon clownfish I named "Jester" who loves to surf in the overflow. I treated the tank with Kick-Ich (I SO know better now!) and it literally burned the last third of her body...no scales, no dorsal fin at all. I thought about euthanizing her, but she kept eating like a pig and I'm happy to report that she is still alive and well and terrorizing my tank.

I wish I had gotten pictures, but I really thought she was a goner. It's amazing what some fish live through!

 

[Ludwigia73]

Speaking of resiliency, alot of you know the story about my sailfin tang... but I'll repeat it. I filled the topoff jug I use for kalkwasser dripping, and the tank was really low one day due to a skimmer overflow. So, I mixed half strength instant ocean, and put 2 teaspoons of kalk into the mix (about 4 gallons) Well, that night I forgot to turn off the drip till the next day, and the sailfin was on her side, wiggling and twitching. Thought I'd lose her. Did a 15% water change with instant ocean, waited an hour, and did another. The next day I come home from work, and she's swimming around, with almost no fins left. The bones are still there, but the meat of the fins were gone. In 3 weeks, she was back to complete normal! I don't use kalk anymore, and I still get growth.