etremely aggressive Clarkii?

RickGemme · #1 07/20/2007, 03:36 PM

ok this was the oddest thing i have seen in the year+ of my tanklife..... i had a dead/dying bta that i wanted to remove from the tank today. So i clean up good and reach in to do some rock moving that was needed to get to the body. The larger of my two Clarkii's began to swim right near my hand, to the point where it would actually get between me and the rock i was trying to reach and i even touched it on accident twice. Kind of cool at first but i did not want to push my luck by hurting the fish lol. Anyways i move the rock and begin removing the anenome body from its own rock when the damn Clarkii actually bit one of my fingers hard enough to make me jerk my arm back (spilling water all over the place in the process). It bit me three more times before i could finish the process of removing the BTA and replacing the original rock setup. By the end it was actually very aggressive towards me. The smaller Clarkii could have cared less about me, my question is has anyone seen anything like this before AND could it mean there are eggs somewhere that i cannot see and the presumably female clarkii was protecting them??

thanks in advance rick gemme

xxpipedreamxx · #2 07/20/2007, 04:31 PM

IME my female clown is extremely aggresive regardless of whether or not I am near her nem. The male shows no interest unless I accidentally disturb him. They have never laid eggs and are only about a year and a half old.

reef fanatic · #3 07/21/2007, 09:27 PM

I am just searching this board today because my Clarkii's just laid eggs recently. The eggs are under the edge of an anemone but when the anemone retracts the eggs are exposed. I have a yellow coris wrasse that soon saw the chance to attack. The big"mama " clarkii is darting so fast that I cannot tell what she is doing, but I assume it involves getting the coris out of there and protecting the eggs.
Scott

BristlewormKing · #4 07/21/2007, 09:40 PM

I have had juvi's that will let me touch them, eat from my fingers, etc. Then when I add their new anemone and they begin hosting, all bets are off if I get anywhere near their home! One fire clown got so bad that she would actually jump out of the tank if my hand or arm was over it. I finally bought extended length tongs just for that tank so I can clean it without the risk of losing a limb! I have a couple of pairs that host in toadstool mushrooms and they don't seem to have the same kind of intense reaction that the ones in my BTAs and Crispas have. There are a couple of two banded that I have that don't care if I am around their anemone - but if I put forceps or anything else in there they will bite that.

reef fanatic · #5 07/21/2007, 09:47 PM

nice name BWK. The whole reason I noticed the eggs in my tank today was that my solar fairy wrasse looked like a grandpa with several bristles all around his mouth, lol. I guess he was trying to have a bristleworm snack. Not sure if it was worth it or not
Scott

got zoanthids?

BristlewormKing · #6 07/22/2007, 05:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by reef fanatic
nice name BWK. The whole reason I noticed the eggs in my tank today was that my solar fairy wrasse looked like a grandpa with several bristles all around his mouth, lol. I guess he was trying to have a bristleworm snack. Not sure if it was worth it or not
Scott

got zoanthids?

I have gotten rid of the bristleworms in 12 of my 19 tanks. I will work on the next 7 in about six months (I have even been leaving the rocks and sand in the sun for a week just to get rid of them). Yep, I have zoas, which is how I ended up with the bristleworms (and some aptasia) in the first place - dang hitchhikers!