Jumper!!! Anything I should know?

grassy_noel · Jul 6, 2018

Hi all,

I was mixing up salt water tonight for my water change tomorrow and I turned around to look at my tank and saw my favorite little male clownfish lying motionless on my carpet!

I have an Innovative Marine Nuvo Fusion tank, which comes with a typical frame/mesh top that I always use, and it was in place, but depending on how you shift it, there can be a gap of maybe 3/16" to 1/4" between the top and the side of the aquarium. Apparently, just enough for a small ocellaris clownfish to slip through if he jumps at just the right angle. Argh...

So...I picked it up as fast as I could and tossed it straight back into my tank. In retrospect, I have no idea if this was smart or dumb, I just thought...Water! Now!!!

Well, immediately my female clown who has always been an butt^&*% starts nipping and biting at him, and he can barely move because he's dried out quite a bit. He sinks straight to the bottom, motionless and of course then my cleaner shrimp comes over to start cleaning...or eating him!

I was about to take him out and flush him, but then I noticed his gills were moving. I sprinted to my box of leftover aquarium junk and found a square of cross-stitch mesh that I was going to use for an ATS, and slid it into my tank as a divider...lucky me, it fit perfectly!

After maybe 15 minutes the jumper was swimming, albeit very crooked, and seemed to be reviving a bit. And then, of course, he found a tiny crack at the edge of the mesh and slipped through. Immediately, momma clown was back to pick at him again...jerk!

So, after a bit, I was able to separate him off at the other end of the tank with a better fit at the edges. And that is where he sits tonight. I turned the lights off early so everyone would calm down, and backed the flow down a bit as well. I guess we'll see whether he makes it through the night, and if so, how he looks in the morning.

Some questions for anyone more experienced than me:

1. Is there anything else I should do right now?

2. Should I go ahead with my water change tomorrow? I usually blast everything off, vacuum gravel, etc. and it gets pretty murked up in the tank. Would it better tomorrow to just remove and replace water?

3. How long should I keep him separated from the rest of the tank? The penned-off area is a triangle in the corner of the tank, maybe 12" long x 12" deep x 3" wide at the wide end and nothing at the other end. It's not a lot of room, but he's a small fish, maybe 1.5".

4. I don't have a quarantine tank, and I do have coral in this tank, so my options are somewhat limited if he comes down with Ich or some other disease. In that event, I think I might have to sacrifice him for the good of the others. Does that make sense?

5. Any other advice? Or obvious things that I'm missing?

Thanks all, and hope all of your fish sleep soundly INSIDE their tanks tonight.

davocean · Jul 6, 2018

If it's contained cool, I just would not want a nearly dead fish sitting at sand bottom w/ lights out as night crawling critters could possibly harm it, contain or leave moons on, or both.
I've had beef jerky fish amazingly bounce back, don't give up

grassy_noel · Jul 7, 2018

Yeah, I’ll definitely be getting an acclimation box after this.

grassy_noel · Jul 7, 2018

Well...good news! He made it through the night. This morning he was swimming around looking healthy in the little pen I divided off from the rest of the tank. I decided to go for it and removed the divider. The female clown came over, stepped a bit, and the little jumper did his jiggle of submission and they swam off together. He's hoping this was just a little glitch. If he feeds tonight I'll assume he's on the road to recovery.

grassy_noel · Jul 8, 2018

The jumper ate well last night and all seems to be ok. Thanks for following along!

ash9965 · Jul 10, 2018

worse case is there any room in the sump or refugium

grassy_noel · Jul 20, 2018

Major Update:

So, the jumper clown fully recovered. Swimming, eating, etc. However, since reintroducing him to the tank the larger, dominant clown of the pair has been bullying him a lot more.

Well, last night the little clown jumped again. Chased right out of the tank by the bigger one. I saw it happen this time.

Since the first jump, I have been keeping the lid of tank precisely located. It is a loose fit, and has small gaps around all sides, so I center it left-to-right and pull it nearly all the way forward, leaving the only gap at the back of the tank. I have a better fitting custom lid on order, but I'm still waiting for it.

So, the little guy jumped out the back of the tank right into the AIO chamber section on the back of the tank. Specifically, into the return chamber, which is the largest chamber back there. It's so packed with pumps and plumbing that I can't get a net in there without tearing the whole tank apart. So I thought, for sure he's a goner, and I'd just have to pull his body out with tweezers in the morning.

Well, this morning he's still swimming just fine. The return section is actually pretty large with a lot of nooks and crannies and soft tubing to swim around, and it appears that the suction from the two pumps in there is not a problem (he appears to be swimming effortlessly, not struggling to stay away from the pumps). So if I can get him to eat in there tonight, I think it might actually be an ok sanctuary for him for a while.

Anyway, I've been setting up a smaller tank that is currently cycling. I'm trying to speed that up with bacteria, but it will probably still be another week before it's ready for fish. My thought is to leave the little guy in the return section (assuming he'll eat there) and then move him to the other tank when it's cycled.

My question is, can a clownfish live alone indefinitely? Is this cruel?

I'm almost sure if I put him back in the main tank, the larger clown will kill him or chase him out of the tank onto the floor again. Somehow I think his first jump broke whatever bond they were developing.

I guess if it's ok, my plan would be to leave the larger clown and a tailspot goby as the only two fish residents of my 20g main display, and the little clown would be the only fish in the new 10g tank.

I appreciate anyone's thoughts. Thanks!