Flame Angel + Ocellaris = Battle Royal

[rrasco]

Two days ago I noticed a wound on my female ocellaris. I figured she was fighting with someone. There is a flame angel, kole tang, royal gramma, blenny, and green mandarin. My suspects were either the flame angel or the kole tang. The flame angel seems to swim around the frogspawn and taunt the ocellaris, although I've never seen them fight, but that's my prime suspect. The flame and tang have only been in the tank for 2 weeks or so.

At any rate, I came home for lunch today and noticed my female clown in the back corner of the sand. Obviously not normal as she stays in the frogspawn except to defend it or get food. She was beaten up a little more as well: fins with small tears, more wounds, etc. I was able to net her easily and move her to the fuge so she won't get harassed while I'm at work. She seems to be swimming around down there better, probably a little lost, but hopefully she is able to gather her strength and recover.

So what are my options? Do I really have any but to get rid of one?

[RayAllen]

Id remove the aggressor. From my experience with aggressive fish they do not stop once a fish is removed. You remove the clown and it will move onto another fish and do the same thing, especially any new fish added after. Granted this is from my experience. May not happen to you.

Problem I see here is that you are speculating that it is the angel although you have not seen it in action, only "taunting" as you mentioned. Id let the clown rest up for a couple days and the return to the main display, sit back when you have some time to kill and watch the tank for a good long while and see what happens.

Good Luck

[rrasco]

That's what I was thinking. Luckily I'm filling my 150g FOWLR right now, so I have somewhere to put him.

I watch this tank a lot and I have not seen anything. The clown always tries to chase away anything that gets close. I'm pretty sure it's the flame though, I didn't have much time to look at lunch and the lights were just ramping up, but I think the angel had a white mark on it's side. Battle scars. The hard part will be catching the flame if that's what has to be done. *sigh*

[RayAllen]

Keep in mind, aggression can even occur after the lights go out. Clowns are one of those fish that are easy to get to because of the way the just sit in and hover. Make sure its not a invert ambush attacking it. I have had this happen, my peppermint shrimp was going after fish only after the lights went out and they go into rest mode, certain crabs will do this also.

[rrasco]

It does seem to be happening at night.

I have a skunk cleaner shrimp, emerald crab, red reef crab, a few turbos, and some nassarius...that I know of. 95% of this rock was dry and only seeded with rock from my 29 I've had over a year. There *shouldn't* be anything else in there, but anything is possible.

[zerreissen]

My guess is it's one of the crabs... but yeah, speculation won't cure the problem ;)

[SAY]

yes, without witnessing the aggression during the day, i would be looking for suspects that are more active at night. i have never seen my flame angel outside of its cave at night.

[alton]

I had a rock crab that took out a purple tang, occellaris, and a bluespot jawfish. It is amazing what can hide in your tank during the day and come out at night.

[Scutterborn]

I remember talking with a guy who had a mantis shrimp in his tank for over a year before he realized he had it. Some guys can be really sneaky!


- Ben -

[rrasco]

I did notice some markings on my kole tang last night, and his dorsal has a small tear in it. So either it was tang vs clown or my predator attacked both.