Fish Territory

[smeagol]

Not been on here for long time but need some advice. 4 fish...1 marroon clown, 1 skunk clown, 1 yellow tang and a blue throat trigger. All living happily together for the past year. Until 2 months ago. For weeks i thought the filter had been making some gurgling clicking noises. Many attempts to fix it and every time i looked into the tank the damn thing stopped and yet it was sooo loud. I was happily watching them from the sofa when the noise started again and i noticed the 2 clowns in the corner. The skunk clown basically kicking the s*** out of the marroon. My marroon clown is about 4 inches long while the skunk about 2.5. Previously they had slept in the anemone at night together. But as i came down to look in darkness the poor marroon was all on his own and looking rather sulky.
I monitored this and decided it could not go on the maroon was startin to look stressed. So the nasty skunk went!! to my kind lfs. oh oh what a mistake.

Maroon has turned into a ravin loony! Really territorial now he has his anemone back. He flys round the tank at 50mph. I have not seen him hurt the other fish at all and i have monitored for hours at a far but the trigger has wedged himself between a rock for the last 2 days. He looks sad. I feel horrible. The tangs seems as though nothing has happened.

I part exchanged skunk for some new food which they all ate when i got home from lfs, all of them were out then it was the day after.

I was very careful with collection of the skunk and know one was affected by this apart from poor skunky. Any help or advise gladly taken.

 

[@ombomb]

how big is the tank?

 

[smeagol]

how big is the tank?

30 Gallons

 

[@ombomb]

well that's the problem then, far too small

maroon clowns are known as one of the most aggressive clowns (and all of them are fairly nasty when they want to be) and in a tank of 30G pretty much any other fish it sees will be seen as being in their territory

you need to rehome the trigger (that's a 10 inch adult fish) and the tang (about 8 inches) and think long and hard about whether you want to keep the clown, personally I'd say it was a bit too small for the tank and will make adding a new fish very difficult now.

what sort of anemone is it? how much lighting / what water turn over do you have?

 

[rictheredneck]

agreed tank is too small!

 

[smeagol]

The maroon has never been aggressive it was the skunk clown. It is only now the skunk has gone that the problem has occured.

I have a home for the maroon and the anemone once their tank is running (old house electrical problem) and the tang as i know the tank is small. It is a Heteractis magnifica anemone which is also large.

I have purchased none of these fish or anemone, they came as a complete set up. I have researched all of the fish and knew the size of the tank. Due to the size of the anemone I am rehoming them but this does take time.

I have changed the lighting to metal halide lighting. 2 power heads- 1 on constant and the other intermittent through the day. Protein skimmer.

There is a photo on my profile of the tank.