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Should I be worried about my clowns?


NaturallyKait

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NaturallyKait

Well, now I’m even more worried. 

 

We were out for the day, came home and the male has an injury on the bridge of his nose/his upper lip. It’s next to impossible to catch on camera, because he’s still really active. He ate well when I fed the tank. I can’t confirm but I’m worried the female is beating him up badly. 

 

Do we need to pull him? Is there something we should do to help him heal? I’m in Canada so meds aren’t sold anymore but I do have a small stash of a few things. 

 

This are the best photos I could get. 

 

94D2BC9A-6307-4DD7-BA58-63BAF77E7119.thumb.jpeg.e9c3c0c9f5eec061633641cb190dcbd2.jpeg

 

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It’s hard to see. It’s a little caved in, right between his nostrils. 

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Nothing you can really do for an injury besides letting it  heal.

 

I've had to remove and separate clowns. My female in my 10g was nuts. Poor Male hid all the time, same with the shrimp. Female was rehomed, I preferred to keep the friendly Male. He is best buds now with a blenny.

 

In my 15g, same situation, had to rehome a clown that I eventually replaced. The second clown paired perfectly.

 

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NaturallyKait
11 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Nothing you can really do for an injury besides letting it  heal.

 

I've had to remove and separate clowns. My female in my 10g was nuts. Poor Male hid all the time, same with the shrimp. Female was rehomed, I preferred to keep the friendly Male. He is best buds now with a blenny.

 

In my 15g, same situation, had to rehome a clown that I eventually replaced. The second clown paired perfectly.

 

I’ll keep an eye on them I guess. What’s the “line” that separates normal clown behaviour and aggression that calls for removing one?

 

I think if it came down to it I’d keep our Male too. He’s my favourite fish, I have a soft spot for misbars and he’s so pretty. It’s weird, I’ve never seen her go after the YCG, or anything else in the tank. Just the Male. 

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52 minutes ago, NaturallyKait said:

I’ll keep an eye on them I guess. What’s the “line” that separates normal clown behaviour and aggression that calls for removing one?

 

I think if it came down to it I’d keep our Male too. He’s my favourite fish, I have a soft spot for misbars and he’s so pretty. It’s weird, I’ve never seen her go after the YCG, or anything else in the tank. Just the Male. 

When there are injuries, one is always hiding, if things don't improve.

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This makes me think you bought a pair...not a breeding/bonded pair. They might not be sexually mature (depending on how big/old they are). One of them is establishing dominance. This will go on for a week to a couple weeks until one either submits or gets brutally attacked. I haven't had a female reject a male completely, but it does happen. If you see the male start twitching, thats actually a sign in the right direction. As @clown79 said, remove them if things dont improve. 

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NaturallyKait
2 minutes ago, Euphylin me said:

This makes me think you bought a pair...not a breeding/bonded pair. They might not be sexually mature (depending on how big/old they are). One of them is establishing dominance. This will go on for a week to a couple weeks until one either submits or gets brutally attacked. I haven't had a female reject a male completely, but it does happen. If you see the male start twitching, thats actually a sign in the right direction. As @clown79 said, remove them if things dont improve. 

I suppose that’s always possible, but they’ve acted like a bonded pair until the last few days. The smaller one (the jumper) does his little shaking “I submit” thing every time and has been the whole time I’ve noticed this behaviour. It’s when she still picks on him even after his little submission shakes that he tries to jump. 

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1 minute ago, NaturallyKait said:

I suppose that’s always possible, but they’ve acted like a bonded pair until the last few days. The smaller one (the jumper) does his little shaking “I submit” thing every time and has been the whole time I’ve noticed this behaviour. It’s when she still picks on him even after his little submission shakes that he tries to jump. 

hmm....i would just keep a close eye for now and make sure the injuries dont get too out of hand. If things dont improve in say, a week, I would separate them.

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  • 1 month later...

Ok these two are back at it, non stop fighting as of this morning. 
 

https://youtu.be/yrah721hoZI

 

The misbar is getting pretty beat up. He was who we were calling the male because he was smaller, but he seems to have had a growth spurt and is close to the same size as the other now and I’m wondering if that’s what’s causing the fighting. I’m prepping to probably separate them today because it’s gotten so bad. You can kind of see how beat up he is in the video (and sorry for the glass, it needs a cleaning but I’ve been dealing with sick kids). 
 

Based on this would people agree they need to be broken up? I have 4 gallons of water mixing right now because that’s all I had left on hand (I use distilled and needed to grab some more) in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, heater and the original return pump from my Evo. Could a single clownfish survive in that overnight or even for a few hours while I figured out what we’re going to do? I do have seeded media in the media rack of my tank I could put in too. 
 

I have a 10 gallon tank in the basement and an AC70, but I don’t have enough water (unless I just dechlorinate tap water) to fill it and I need to leak test it. I probably wouldn’t have it ready until tomorrow assuming it doesn’t leak. Just worried about them making it to then.  

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Still looks like damsels fighting for dominance, I was always told to look out for fin-damage or serious lesions, but that damage to lips and face was unavoidable/normal. I'll defer to others here and agree you need to keep an eye out since they're the same size, it might get uglier or it could just suddenly stop, no clue. It doesn't look like there's much of a space for either to retreat to from the shot in the video though, I don't know if that might be making the problem worse or not.

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4 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

Still looks like damsels fighting for dominance, I was always told to look out for fin-damage or serious lesions, but that damage to lips and face was unavoidable/normal. I'll defer to others here and agree you need to keep an eye out since they're the same size, it might get uglier or it could just suddenly stop, no clue. It doesn't look like there's much of a space for either to retreat to from the shot in the video though, I don't know if that might be making the problem worse or not.

The scape has two little caves that they tend to separate into when they break up usually, it may just be hard to see in the video. 
 

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Old photo, but there’s a little tunnel on the left there and the cave on the right. That’s usually where they break up to. 
 

I don’t see any fin damage at this point. The misbar has what look like minor abrasions but I don’t know how bad that is? There’s definitely some mouth abrasions from them locking jaws and fighting. I think I’m just nervous because where I live I can’t buy meds, so other than a few that I can stashed if something gets infected I may not be able to treat it. 

 

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1 hour ago, NaturallyKait said:

Ok these two are back at it, non stop fighting as of this morning. 
 

https://youtu.be/yrah721hoZI

 

The misbar is getting pretty beat up. He was who we were calling the male because he was smaller, but he seems to have had a growth spurt and is close to the same size as the other now and I’m wondering if that’s what’s causing the fighting. I’m prepping to probably separate them today because it’s gotten so bad. You can kind of see how beat up he is in the video (and sorry for the glass, it needs a cleaning but I’ve been dealing with sick kids). 
 

Based on this would people agree they need to be broken up? I have 4 gallons of water mixing right now because that’s all I had left on hand (I use distilled and needed to grab some more) in a 5 gallon bucket with a lid, heater and the original return pump from my Evo. Could a single clownfish survive in that overnight or even for a few hours while I figured out what we’re going to do? I do have seeded media in the media rack of my tank I could put in too. 
 

I have a 10 gallon tank in the basement and an AC70, but I don’t have enough water (unless I just dechlorinate tap water) to fill it and I need to leak test it. I probably wouldn’t have it ready until tomorrow assuming it doesn’t leak. Just worried about them making it to then.  

Clowns can go in tap water saltwater just fine.  It won't affect them.  If they are fighting aggressively to where one is getting damaged then they do need to be separated immediately before one ends up dead.  

 

Edit:  I just watched your video.  I would've already had them separated by now based on how they are fighting.

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13 minutes ago, j.falk said:

Clowns can go in tap water saltwater just fine.  It won't affect them.  If they are fighting aggressively to where one is getting damaged then they do need to be separated immediately before one ends up dead.  

 

Edit:  I just watched your video.  I would've already had them separated by now based on how they are fighting.

This fighting is new. It wasn’t near this bad before, it was just the “female” picking a bit on the misbar but he was submitting and she finally backed off. Now he’s fighting back as of today instead of running away and submitting. 

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Well, my spouse put the 10g tank up on a high shelf in the basement - I can’t reach it even standing on a chair (short person problems). He’s at work until midnight. 
 

I resolved myself to catching one of the clowns and putting it in the bucket for the night, no dice. My net is missing completely (I blame a 4 year old), and the suckers are way too fast for me to catch by hand so far. I tried a bag and a container, still no luck. After an hour I’m taking a break, they’re getting stressed which isn’t going to help anything. They did chill out for most of the rest of the day and didn’t fight so much, but there’s still the occasional face off that’s not nearly as dramatic as this morning. I still think the misbar is getting too beat up though so I’m still going to try to get one of them out of the tank at least for now, preferably the mean one. Need to figure out a long term plan. I’m going to have one disappointed 4 year old if one of them goes back to the LFS 😞

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Alright the misbar is caught and in the bucket for the night. They started fighting bad again. The bucket has circulation, heat, the little pack of cycled media (I added prime too for good measure) and a cover (with air holes) so hopefully he’s ok till tomorrow and we can reassess. 

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8 hours ago, NaturallyKait said:

I’m going to have one disappointed 4 year old if one of them goes back to the LFS 😞

I think it'd be more disappointing/traumatizing seeing a dead fish floating in the tank vs. having to take one back because sometimes things just don't work out no matter how much we might want them to.  I'm glad to see you separated them.  Based on the way they were fighting...it wouldn't have ended well in the long run.

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22 minutes ago, j.falk said:

I think it'd be more disappointing/traumatizing seeing a dead fish floating in the tank vs. having to take one back because sometimes things just don't work out no matter how much we might want them to.  I'm glad to see you separated them.  Based on the way they were fighting...it wouldn't have ended well in the long run.

A dead fish would be worse for sure, but both would be hard on a kid who can’t really understand. 
 

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