The sad tale of the angry clown

chandler04

Active Member
Well, this is a sad tale. Very sad. It is one with both horror and pure sadness. You see, I loved clowns. Loved them SOO much. I had just been having my first good spurt of luck ever with fish. My new tank, which was a blessing after the pit of death was put out of use, was doing nicely. A couple of chemical problems had been fixed. My one surviving fish, Jeff, a very nice false percula, was in the tank, as well as a little larger clarkii clown. I had an anemone, and the clarkii was hosting. I had just gotten two new small ones, a small percula and a small clarkii. They were so cute and adorable. Then the big one got mean. He started chasing them, being terrible. I went and got another anemone for the littles ones to hide in. The small clarkii went in, but the percula, like most without a good carpet anemone, stayed out. Soon, they were all staying in the opposite corner of the tank, leaving the clarkii to his own side. (55 gallon tank btw). One morning I awake, and the tiny clarkii is missing. I go to skool, come back, little perc is missing. By end of the night, half of baby perc shows up stuck on the filter, the other clarkii is dead. I got rid of the "murderer", but not before jeff sustained a bite to the head. It seemed that Jeff would be allright, but then he started acting awkward. He wouldn't eat, swam with his head pointed down, tail towards the sky. He never came out from his corner. Poor jeff died a full week later. This goes to show how I had 4 fish, and lost them all in little over a week. Not even my fault either, it was just caused by another fish. For this, I believe clarkiis to be mean, evil fish. :mad:
:nope:
 

moray345

Active Member
Actually its very your fault you should of researched clowns first if you loved them so much.For future reference never MIX CLOWNS:mad: :mad:
:nope: ,
Moray345
 

thedraven

Member
Thats a sad story, but a familiar one. I personally was mislead a while back by an lfs employee that it was ok to mix clowns. Not so... I mixed a clarkii with a tomato and within 10 minutes my clarkii was ripped to shreds. Its a tough lesson to learn, but an important one... RESEARCH!!! Do tons of it, check books, then mags, then online, ask friends... and then do MORE research. This board is an incredible tool and you should be thankful for this community... these guys have an incredible wealth of knowledge they share free of charge. By the way, as far as clowns go, you actually had some of the least aggressive species... still, you need to be careful when mixing them!! Try to stick to the same species and introduce only mated pairs if possible!!!
:happyfish
 

chandler04

Active Member
Im done with clowns after that one. I had no idea about clowns, i thought that i would have a nice clown community. Yes I learned. It wasnt totally my fault, cuz i didnt know. I have one cinnamon clown right now. I might, down the road, setup a 20 gallon or sumthing with a mated pair and a nice anemone. Get some MH lights, lots of fiji live rock for filtration. Small protein skimmer. It'll be cool. YEA
 

robb

Member
Because I have this board and so many people willing to help me I could never use the excuse of "I was ignorant so it's not my fault."
 

mytank

Member
I had a tank with 3 clowns in it a yellow(pumpkin) clown, regular orange one and a tomato clown I had them in the same tank of 3 years and they always got along ok
 

robb

Member
There will always be freak things that work like people who have a trigger in a reef tank or multiple clown fish that live together, or crowding tangs in a tank smaller than 70 gallons but I would caution giving advise in favor of something like that because 98% of the time it ends in a disaster.
 

krishj39

Active Member

Originally posted by Robb
There will always be freak things that work like people who have a trigger in a reef tank or multiple clown fish that live together, or crowding tangs in a tank smaller than 70 gallons but I would caution giving advise in favor of something like that because 98% of the time it ends in a disaster.

I agree, Robb, but on the mixing of clowns I think it can work out with much higher success rates if the different clowns are added to the tank as juveniles and at the same time. Though, obviously there is still risk involved, I don't think it is anywhere close to 98%. I have a GS maroon in with 2 false percs and have no problems, as long as the maroon doesn't try to go in the perc's anenome (which it knows better than to try). I wouldn't try it in anything smaller than a 55g though.
 
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