Established clown pair suddenly fight when lights turn off

[_cpate3_]

I’ve had a rough week with my tanks and clown aggression. My clowns just turned about 1 year old and I believe it was spawning behavior, but it hasn’t stopped. I isolated the clowns in their own tank and they were fine, until I shut the lights off and the female started locking lips and attacking the male. They’ve always nipped and twitched and done the normal clown behavior, however as soon as the lights go out she goes killer. But then I turn the lights back on and they go to completely normal behavior. Does anyone have any insight on this?

 

[Reef.]

Does she actually bite him and leave damage?

Mine are not aggressive but the female definitely pushes the male around a little more when the lights go out, just for a minute or so.

 

[_cpate3_]

Does she actually bite him and leave damage?

Mine are not aggressive but the female definitely pushes the male around a little more when the lights go out, just for a minute or so.

Yes they lock lips and I saw some white marks on their lips. I haven’t seen any bodily damage on the clowns but she bit my mandarins fin off, caused a bruise to my flasher wrasse, and bit my dottybacks tail off and all 3 died to their injuries. I’ve been observing their behavior after lights out for about 10min now and the female seems to be sleeping up against the wall, but the male is swimming head first non stop into the overflow which I’ve never seen before so he definitely seems stressed out

 

[Reef.]

Yes they lock lips and I saw some white marks on their lips. I haven’t seen any bodily damage on the clowns but she bit my mandarins fin off, caused a bruise to my flasher wrasse, and bit my dottybacks tail off and all 3 died to their injuries. I’ve been observing their behavior after lights out for about 10min now and the female seems to be sleeping up against the wall, but the male is swimming head first non stop into the overflow which I’ve never seen before so he definitely seems stressed out

Its down to you to decide if its going to lead to a bad injury or death of the male, whilst the other deaths are bad, that is totally normal so I wouldnt judge the female on being aggressive to other fish, especially if in a smaller tank.

An option is putting her in a acclimation box, see if moving her out of her normal routine helps change her ways, you could try just at night or give her a few days in there, I definitely wouldn’t put the male in the box as that could make her more aggressive when he is reintroduced.

 

[_cpate3_]

Yes they lock lips and I saw some white marks on their lips. I haven’t seen any bodily damage on the clowns but she bit my mandarins fin off, caused a bruise to my flasher wrasse, and bit my dottybacks tail off and all 3 died to their injuries. I’ve been observing their behavior after lights out for about 10min now and the female seems to be sleeping up against the wall, but the male is swimming head first non stop into the overflow which I’ve never seen before so he definitely seems stressed out

I mean quite literally just sitting there

 

[_cpate3_]

Its down to you to decide if its going to lead to a bad injury or death of the male, whilst the other deaths are bad, that is totally normal so I wouldnt judge the female on being aggressive to other fish, especially if in a smaller tank.

An option is putting her in a acclimation box, see if moving her out of her normal routine helps change her ways, you could try just at night or give her a few days in there, I definitely wouldn’t put the male in the box as that could make her more aggressive when he is reintroduced.

They seem to have mellowed out but the male is still acting in a way I’ve never seen. She JUST got released from a 4 day acclimation box jail

 

[Reef.]

They seem to have mellowed out but the male is still acting in a way I’ve never seen. She JUST got released from a 4 day acclimation box jail

I don’t know if it helps but I black out my tank at night, I wrap a blackout blind around the tank…if its real dark in there she may leave him alone and he may calm down.

 

[_cpate3_]

They seem to have mellowed out but the male is still acting in a way I’ve never seen. She JUST got released from a 4 day acclimation box jail

Ok lights fully off and the female seems to just bump him not so much biting anymore. Maybe she just needed time to chill after the box but I’m afraid to go to sleep and wake up to my 5th dead fish…

 

[_cpate3_]

I don’t know if it helps but I black out my tank at night, I wrap a blackout blind around the tank…if its real dark in there she may leave him alone and he may calm down.

Interesting? How do you keep it up or do you wrap it every single night

 

[Reef.]

Interesting? How do you keep it up or do you wrap it every single night

I wrap it every night before I go to bed, my lights go out when I go to bed so maybe a little easier for me to do that.

 

[_cpate3_]

I wrap it every night before I go to bed, my lights go out when I go to bed so maybe a little easier for me to do that.

Would you say it’s safe to leave the clowns overnight, I just checked on them after about 30min of lights out and no visible damage has been done to the male. Like I said I don’t want to wake up to another loss

 

[Reef.]

Would you say it’s safe to leave the clowns overnight, I just checked on them after about 30min of lights out and no visible damage has been done to the male. Like I said I don’t want to wake up to another loss

Only you can answer that as you can see how aggressive she is with him but if no damage she is not seemingly trying to hurt him as she could do that with just one bite.

You also have to consider what you are going to do if you don’t leave them alone? Remove him this time, as said reintroduction could be fatal, remove him totally, try a new male, she could be worse with a new male.