Crazy Fish Attack?

[greg_m_o]

So I woke up today to chaos in my tank. All of my fish (1 Clown, 1 Purpleback Pseudochromis, and 1 blue damsel) were chasing down my yellow watchman goby. I've had the goby for about a month and a half, and all the fish were getting along with the watchman until now. The goby now has been hiding behind my protein skimmer all day. Any idea why this sudden agressive behaviour towards the goby is suddenly happening?

 

[sharkboy13]

maybe he forgot to make coffee

....

 

[michael1972]

did your watchman goby dig any mew holes ?

 

[anonome]

We probably will never know what sparked this attack, however, since the attack has happened it is important to remove the watchman to a safe haven. Either completely out of the tank...preferably, or sectioned off from the rest of the fish in this tank. Since they attacked the watchman will be wounded, and any other attacks will be more vicious. Remove the watchman until you know he has healed, rearrange the rocks in the tank and put him back in. Good luck.

 

[stanlalee]

if you had asked I would have said the probability of a watchman being harrassed by the psuedo and damsel would be about 95% unless it was there 1rst, alot bigger and already established. psuedo's are notorious for behaving and just one day flipping on tank mates. if a damsel realizes it can harrass something in its domain it probably will. thats how they keep their territory their teritory. I'd blame the psuedo for starting the frenzy. clowns without anenome's tend to make their territory in rocks low in the tank and its not beyond them to chase or at least shadow bottom dwellers. my lawnmower blenny was 3x the size of my false perc and even the blenny trying to bite him never detered him from constant shadowing particularly during feeding. the goby isn't going to have the balls to survive with that crowd.

 

[ophiura]

How big is this tank? I tend to agree with the above. You have 3 fish with an attitude and if this is a small tank, say under 30 g, it was a rather volatile combination, IMO.