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Clownfish fins damaged


tranceFusion

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tranceFusion

I added 2 small clowns and a yellow clown goby about 3-4 weeks ago. I then added a tailspot blenny about 2 days ago. The smaller clown had a little bit of tail damage when I got him that seemed to be from the tank full of clowns nipping at each other in the LFS.

 

I noticed today that the larger clown now has damage to his rear dorsal and left pectoral fin. Looking at picture of the fish from a week or two ago, this was definitely not present then.

 

Does this seem more likely to be disease or fighting? The larger clown nipped at the smaller one for a day or two when I got them but the smaller one was very passive and it quickly stopped. I have seen on two occasions the YCG chase the clownfish in a circle but since the YCG isn't a strong swimmer the clown just seems to shrug it off. So my bet would be on the TSB as it is a new addition. I saw it chase the larger clown across the tank twice so far, but never any nipping. In terms of size the largest is TSB > YCG > phantom clown > regular ocellaris.

 

Am I safe to just wait and see what happens as the TSB gets settled? Or do I need to start splitting fish up?

 

Is there any chance this is disease/pest and not fighting with each other? Thanks!

 

Larger clown:

 

IMG_3345.JPG

IMG_3346.JPG

 

Smaller clown:

IMG_3315.JPG

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tranceFusion

So the dorsal fin is mostly healed up but the pectoral fins have gotten worse. Yesterday I checked him out thoroughly and today I saw a rip in the tail that wasn't there yesterday.

 

At this point I think I can rule out diseases since some of the damaged spots have healed as others appeared. I think the culprit the Yellow Clown Goby. I haven't seen him bite, and I know they are supposed to be peaceful, but he does chase the clown around periodically. Unfortunately the smaller clown passed away and I took the TSB back to the shop so neither of them are offenders.

 

The other tank inhabitants are an emerald crab, skunk cleaner shrimp, and a lot of larger brittle stars that came in my LR (probably more than a dozen in a 25G).

clown.JPG

clown2.JPG

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A "large" brittle star would be 12" across or so.  You say you have a dozen of them???

 

Size claims aside, brittle stars and crabs are both opportunistic.

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Ok, these are about 6" wide, if fully stretched out. There's a leg sticking out of every hole in my rock pretty much 🙂  Normally they stay in the rock or underneath the edge of it, so not fully stretched out. But once I saw one on top of the rock at night with part of his body and some of his legs outstretched into the water - I wondered if he was trying to catch something..

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4 hours ago, tranceFusion said:

I wondered if he was trying to catch something..

Yes.  Daytime "fishing".

 

4 hours ago, tranceFusion said:

these are about 6" wide, if fully stretched out.

That is big enough to catch and eat anything it wants at night.  I had one catch and eat a porcelain crab the same size is was.  It would try to catch fish at night while they were hiding too.

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Well, my wife saw the Yellow Clown Goby go after and bite down on the clownfish, so it's definitely the culprit. I know these are supposed to be peaceful fish - is an occasional aggression expected? Will it stop when the clownfish gets bigger than the YCG?

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I'll admit I'm a little surprised at your goby, but only a little.  

 

"Peaceful" is the wrong adjective for reef fish IMO.  

 

If you're peaceful on a reef, chances are you're a food item.

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