Female clown attacking male!

[kelipalmer]

We have a mated pair of ocellaris clowns. They've been happy together since we have owned them. Today we noticed the male having moderate fin damage and acting very strange (didn't eat, swimming vertically, etc.). The female is attacking the male. We've read that this sometimes happens when the fish is getting ready to spawn. What should we do? We happen to have a QT set up right now as we are expecting some new fish on Friday. So we could QT the female for 24 hours or so. We also thought about putting her in the refugium for a while. Can you do that? Other ideas?

 

[bdare]

If they really are a pair they will figure it out. Could just be her laying down the law.

 

[niteowl03]

@bdare wrote:

Kinda like my wife...sometimes she has to slap me around too!

 

[mukymuk]

My pair have spawned every other week for the past ~3 years that I've had them. The female of my pair will assert dominance over the male but never to the point of physical damage. I would be concerned if there is obvious damage or if behavior changes like you describe.

How long have you owned these? How many times have they spawned?

Another thing to consider is that the male might be sick. It's not uncommon for fish to drive away sick conspecifics.

You're not going to harm either one by separating them. But keeping them together might end badly.

 

[bdare]

@mukymuk wrote:

+1. Great post.

 

[kelipalmer]

We've had them for 9 months (the previous owner had them together for a while before then... not sure how long). We're still new to the hobby so I'm not sure how to know when they spawn. I'd just read that sometimes the female will get aggressive around that time. This is very uncharacteristic behavior as they have always seemed to be good friends. The male has shown no typical signs of being sick. Even now, he looks healthy other than the fin damage.

Is putting one in the refugium a good option? Which one should go in there?

 

[mukymuk]

Not eating and changes in swimming behavior can be a sign of illness. You may not see any physical signs.

Doesn't mater which goes where as long as you maintain a reasonable environment for them both. Sump is fine if there is room, cover, reasonable flow, etc. You just need to keep them apart long enough to make sure the male starts eating again.

Spawning is pretty obvious-- the egg mass is hard to miss and the male will attend it tirelessly. The female too to a lesser extent. They might not actually be mated which could be part of the problem. They might still be deciding who's going to be female. If they are older fish and not presently mated, they might not ever mate and just continue to fight. Not sure about that.

Do they have an anemone?

 

[kelipalmer]

No anemone... just some mushroom coral they like to hang around. Based upon what you've said, I don't know that there has ever been spawning.
The aggression seems to have calmed down in the last few hours. We'll see how they do. Thanks for your help.

 

[kelipalmer]

UPDATE: So, we're still not sure if the clown is sick or if the behavior is related to spawning, but we came up with this solution. I made a screen partition for the male to reside in. Because of the fin damage, he was weak and some other fish were starting to pick on him. We were going to put him in the refugium, but we wouldn't be able to monitor him very well. This allows us to keep an eye on him. It also has allowed him to start eating again as the other fish can't compete for the food we put in. The female is still acting strange, so our guess is she is getting ready to spawn.

The male is swimming normally now, his fins already look like they're healing a bit, and he's started to eat again. Thanks again for all of your help.

 

[mukymuk]

Good solution. Glad we could help!