3 yr old clowns beat up

Upon returning from vacation yesterday, I noticed my male and female clowns are bit beat up. They have tears in there fines. Other than that, normal behavior seemed okay, they ate and swam normal. The tank mates include an engineering goby and my newest addition my Midas blenny. I have reason to believe it was my clowns beating up on one another. Tonight I will try to get some pictures.

 

Do you have an autofeeder or a pet sitter that was feeding or taking care of your tank while you were gone? I've known my engineering goby to get pretty cranky and nip at the others if he misses a day of feeding. I suppose it depends on the size though, our EG is just over 6", and our clowns/chromis are barely 3.

It's not unheard of for the "peaceful" (as they say at fish stores) engineering goby to go after tank mates, especially if they get too close to his cave.

 

I agree, I actually think my engineer goby used to snack on reef chromis and yellow tailed damsels since they always seemed to disappear in my tank within a few days after adding. I never saw him be aggressive but there were never any bodies and they would just slowly disappear.......I always thought of him as peaceful too so he was never my first suspect Clowns can also get aggressive with each other so who knows....I think you can count the midas out though - I have one now and he is by far the most friendly and peaceful in the tank.

 

Tears in fins are not always from injury. They can also be from a decline in health or disease (I believe flukes will cause this). Just throwing that out there too. I suppose if they both have, you may be right in that they were attacking each other. How long have they been together in the tank?

 

+1 Especially since it is the newest add to the tank.

 

I don't believe it's my goby as I've had it for a very long time, no problems. I am counting the blenny out. As far as health decline, it's just my clowns that are showing signs.

 

Not the best picture but it'll suffice. Upon further watch its just my female.

 

Firstly, your female clown is gorgeous! I sincerely regret getting the standard ocellaris vs. any other kind. Regardless, that chunk from her tail fin is questionable. However, if everything is fine in your tank now that you've been back I wouldn't stress. It's not life threatening, and if it was any of the other fish-they've realized who's boss.


This may be one of those situations where the son/daughter comes home and you should ask "how does the other guy look?" vs. "who hit you".

 

Do you have any serpent stars that could have gotten hungry in your absence?

 

that really doesn't look like cause for concern to me. It could have gotten scraped on a rock or something also....who knows - clowns can dart around rock pretty quickly when they're doing what clowns do....