Spotted Hawkfish Is Chewing Up

[Karah's_Mommy]

I just got in from work and found my serpent start moving around my tank with one leg dangling and a puncture wound to his body. He's never out during the day, so I found him moving around very odd. Then I watched and saw my spotted hawkfish stalk, then attack the star. I've since moved some rocks around to try to build a hiding spot for the star. What do I do? They've lived together for around 8 months and I've never seen this. I admit the hawkfish is rather mean, he's attacked another fish, but I never thought he'd go after the star. I will probably see if my fish store will take the hawkfish back, but it would be at least Tuesday before I could do that. Any suggestions on what to do for the starfish as well? to help him heal? Thanks in advance.

 

[steelhealr]

Karah...I"m sorry, but, you'll have to do a bit more reading before stocking your tank. Hawkfish are RENOWNED for being aggressive fish, in fact, quite nasty. Not only that, it is very clearly seen that Hawkfish and invertebrates are INCOMPATIBLE potentials:

Hawkfish are potentially incompatible with inverts

See if you can bring the hawkfish back. The invert can regenerate (I"m not even sure why you have a star in there anyway...how big is your tank?). If the star dies, it will fall part quickly and contaminate your tank.

Read..research....

Hang in.
SH

 

[AliRichardson]

Try a Scarlet hawkfish. I found found these ones to be very good to keep. Never tried any of the other kinds of hawk tho