Female snowflake clown killed mate

[megan84]

I've had paired snowflake clowns in quarantine since the end of June, and was just getting ready to introduce them to the main tank this past weekend.  The male was acting a little off, so I decided to wait, but on Sunday morning I found that the female had killed the male with her persistent bullying that started on Saturday.  I keep up with regular water changes, so parameters have been consistent.  There were no signs of ammonia or nitrates and salinity was 35.2.  

 

After killing the male, the female has begun to act stressed.  I have conducted 2, 30% water changes.  One was done on Saturday, and another on Sunday.  While she doesn't seem overly interested in food when I add it to the tank, I have seen her eating off the bottom of the QT.  She has also started hiding, which is abnormal for her, so I did cover the tank to shield her from bright lights, the stares of my cats, and basically anything that may be scaring her.

 

Are there any other steps that I can take to reduce her stress, or would it be best to just keep doing water changes every few days, wait it out and hope for the best?

[Tamberav]

Are you sure there is no possible disease at work here? She may have killed the male but perhaps he was already weak from something else. 

 

Fish can be more stressed without the "saftey in numbers" feeling too but I am suspicious the male was acting "off" and now the female is showing early signs of possible disease.

[megan84]

6 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Are you sure there is no possible disease at work here? She may have killed the male but perhaps he was already weak from something else. 

 

Fish can be more stressed without the "saftey in numbers" feeling too but I am suspicious the male was acting "off" and now the female is showing early signs of possible disease.

I didn't notice any other signs, and the two have been in QT for nearly 12 weeks.  This is the first sign of anything being wrong.  There are no visible signs of ich, and i did treat for internal parasites on arrival to the QT with HexShield food.  I had a melanurus wrasse die of those buggers in 24 hours after showing signs, so I wanted to pre-treat just in case.  She had been getting more aggressive at feeding time which I tried to remedy by making sure I added food across the whole tank so he could avoid her then.  He has been twitching in submission to her, but occasionally he would try to make her submit.

[Lula_Mae]

to Nano-Reef!  Sorry about the clown. I don't have any advice other than keep a close eye on her, she may just be freaking out because she's alone now.  I have heard of clowns occasionally turning on their mates, though not often.

[Clown79]

Sorry about the clown.

 

Females are often aggressive with the males. They bully and chase them. It's natural.

 

In the wild the female is surrounded by males and spends her day chasing them, it's so she stays the queen and they stay males.

 

I am concerned as well, you mention the male was off the day before he died. There could have been something else going on.

 

What made you come to the conclusion she killed him? Was she biting him, slamming him into things, or simply chasing him?

 

Were they of similar size because it's best to get one smaller than the other to ensure one stays male and the other female.

[megan84]

5 hours ago, Clown79 said:

What made you come to the conclusion she killed him? Was she biting him, slamming him into things, or simply chasing him?

 

Were they of similar size because it's best to get one smaller than the other to ensure one stays male and the other female.

She had started biting him or ramming him during feeding.  I just don't know what else could have been going on.  I check the water parameters and everything was standard, and I don't know what could have surfaced after nearly 10 weeks in QT.  Any ideas?  She passed yesterday, so I'm just clueless at this point.

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, megan84 said:

She had started biting him or ramming him during feeding.  I just don't know what else could have been going on.  I check the water parameters and everything was standard, and I don't know what could have surfaced after nearly 10 weeks in QT.  Any ideas?  She passed yesterday, so I'm just clueless at this point.

She did sound aggressive but I suspect there was something more to it since she passed as well.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Was their poop stringy, white, runny? 

 

Any other issues that may stand out? 

 

Sometimes we never know the answer, which is frustrating.

[megan84]

35 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

She did sound aggressive but I suspect there was something more to it since she passed as well.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Was their poop stringy, white, runny? 

 

Any other issues that may stand out? 

 

Sometimes we never know the answer, which is frustrating.

Fins were fine, she was open until after she killed the male.  He had a clamped dorsal fin the day before, so I was spreading food even more than normal and considering separating them.  No stringy poop, and her color was good.  He was a little pale on Saturday as well, but it all seemed stress related.  Even after she died I checked her over again for any rips in her fins or other injury.  

 

It's just driving me crazy, because I'm having no issues with the corals and invertebrates in my main display other than the typical hermit crabs killing snails, but I've had no luck with saltwater fish.  The bettas my kids have are doing great though, even managed to bring my daughters back from a nasty fin infection where he kept ripping them on things.  I really think I'm just going to focus on the corals and such for a bit, and I'll try fish again in another year or so.

[Tamberav]

I would do prazipro instead of medicated food next time. 

 

I personally just can't get my head around medicated foods. Fish eat different amounts each feeding which means different dosing and that food while has an ingredient to kill parasites is also a antibiotic, which can be good if there is an infection but if not, idk... I'm not sure about fish but with people long term antibiotics can mess up your gut flora, ect. 

 

Just seems for ourselves or our other pets, we give a certain dosage of medication but medicated foods for fish would be more random based on what they ate and I don't think the package says, give fish each 5 pellets, ect.

 

I'm just not sold on the idea yet. To be fair, I have never tried that food but thats because prazipro has never let me down to treat internal and external parasites and I have put it in my reef before (not saying people should but some people do) as it is very specific on what it attacks.