Tomato Clownfish and tank current

Hi all, I have noticed something and wonder if others see this.

I have a 65 gallon tank with lots of live rock making tons of caves. I use an undergravel filter with 320 gpm powerhead and a simple Bio System Power Filter & Oxy Surface Skimmer for a 75 gallon tank.

I have a 5" Picasso trigger, 3 blue Chromis, and two Tomato Clownfish. Outside of various tank cleaners, that is all I have and will probably stock.

My question is about the Clownfish. They are a matched pair and tend to hang out in caves and only come out at feeding time.

I assumed this was just the way it was, but one day I left the filters off for a few hours after feeding. To my surprise, the Clownfish were swimming all over the tank and feeding on rocks.

I have tried this several times without the filters on and they swim out in the open and add a lot of character to the tank. I can only assume it is the powerhead causing too much current in the tank. This doesn't seem right to me, and I was wondering if other people have noticed this.

I have one lift tube in the center of the tank and have the exaust set to blow over to one side angled to the top.

It doesn't seem too much to me, but you can't argue with results.

GulfMan

 

Hey Gulfman

it could be that when you turned off the filter then you also isolated a cause of stray voltage
apparently it affects the fishes lateral line and from what I have read recently can be interpreted by this fishes system as a predator - hence hanging about in the safety of the rock work
power goes off - predator is gone - fish come out and investigate

dont know
but its possible

my clowns love the wavemaker and swim into it for fun

Steve

 

I have clowns in both of my tanks--sm. 30 gal. has a canister filter (for now) and my 120 gal. has overflows with a sump system. I usually only turn off my return pumps when feeding my corals. My clowns rarely hide out. They are always out and about in the tank. I don't know about a current short, but I think that something is definitely not right. My friend also has clowns in her 40 gal. and hers are always swimming around too.

Good Luck!

 

Thanks for the replies. When I say they hide in caves, they kind of nestle back in them and peek out.

I always thought they hid out because of the trigger being the dominate member of the tank. He doesn't attack any of the fish, but does one heck of a lot of swimming.

The trigger and blue chromis love playing in exhaust of the powerhead but maybe they are not as sensitive to the stray voltage thing.

I have one other idea and that is maybe the clownfish have learned when the pumps go off they get fed. When they pumps stay off, they think it is still feeding time? I have noticed they are generally nipping at the rocks and looking all over the tank in my test.

strange .......