Beware of clownfish....He's a biter!

[tigereye37]

Does anyone else have a problem with Ocellaris clowns and biting? In the last two weeks my 3 year old male clown has become very aggressive towards my hands when i'm cleaning the tank. At first it wasn't an issue because he couldn't really grab enough skin to pinch; then the little bugger figured out to bite me between my fingers and it hurts! Thank god the female doesn't bite, she's a monster! Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm dreading cleaning my tank later today..... :-(

[boilermaker1]

They're terratorial, not much you can do. Mine have drawn blood before. Best thing to do is keep them busy.... feed the tank, then start cleaning it, maybe give them something else to chase. Gloves may also help.... at least they'll bite the glove.

[ozzman69]

A set of aqua gloves works good but, hard to handle small items with gloves on.

[gdavis17]

I feel your pain, literally, my male maroon clown always attacks me when I stick my whole hand in the tank. He's trying to defend his woman. However when it's feeding time they love to see my hand and take the food right out of my palm. You have to love the personalities of clowns, they are unlike any other fish.

[BigJay]

I'll get nipped when I try to feed the clown's favorite host anemone. Solution? I feed it with a turkey baster, and they bite that.

They leave my hands alone so long as I stay away from the anemone.

[Patroklos]

Bite Back!

[ziyaadb]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13783436#post13783436 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Patroklos
Bite Back!

ahahahahahah:D :D :D

[english83]

Craig trained our moroons. Every time one would bite he would flick them. Not hard enough to do any damage, but enough to get their attention. Now they will check him out, but they don't bite anymore.

[Tangwich]

when i had my mated pair of GSM clowns, the female bit me a couple of times, hard enough to draw blood. I tried everything including waving my fist in fury at her but nothing worked. That is until I bought some aqua gloves and that did the trick.

[tigereye37]

I may have to get a pair of gloves if this keeps up! The little stinker is so tiny that he dodges my little flicks and then comes in to nip. Its almost tank cleaning time..... If you don't hear from me later that means he pulled me in. ;-)

[crvz]

I've had a number of fish do that, most of the time it just freaks me out, I jerk my arm, and then I break some prize coral. ;)

[streetjudge79]

My saddle clown bites like a sonofa*****

[cmlloveless]

Just be glad it is only a clown fish and not something that can do a little more damage!

I used to have a moray eel in a 55g. Not sure the actual name but I got it as a yellow head moray. It had a yellow head and a white body with black spots on it. Anyways... I made the mistake of hand feeding it from the start. Big no no with morays! Once he got used to it he would come flying to the top of the tank everytime I wold come near bobbing his head in and out of the water! Well one time feeding him he decided to come farther out of the water than usual and took a chunk out of my hand! It had small teeth but dang were they razor sharp!!!

[tigereye37]

I'm alive! I just tried to keep my fingers together mostly. I had the little clown biting me and the fire shrimp cleaning me at the same time.

[ryan115]

wait until they lay some eggs...they get even feistier. and hope that yours dont learn how to use thier cheek spines, those hurt

[fender4string]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13786380#post13786380 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tigereye37
I'm alive! I just tried to keep my fingers together mostly. I had the little clown biting me and the fire shrimp cleaning me at the same time.

LOL that sounds like some entertaining livestock :lol:

[cl2ysta1]

my maroons bite me a lot but they are afraid of my tongs so i poke that at them while i'm doing stuff in the tank

[Mike31154]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13782755#post13782755 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gdavis17
I feel your pain, literally, my male maroon clown always attacks me when I stick my whole hand in the tank. He's trying to defend his woman. However when it's feeding time they love to see my hand and take the food right out of my palm. You have to love the personalities of clowns, they are unlike any other fish.

Male maroon protecting his woman?! This is too cool. My male maroon is quite the timid little fellow, it's the mama I have to watch out for. She's taken quite a few runs at my hand when I get too close to the BTA but has only made contact a few times. Not enough to draw blood but same reaction as other posters, makes me jump & jerk back the hand in surprise. They're so fast. The blue devil damselfish in the tank actually causes me more grief, he's a little bugger, thinks he owns the whole place. No match for mama clown though if she gets into a foul mood.

[shelburn61]

My female black ocellaris chases my hand all the way across the tank and bites every chance she gets. The little male just hangs out in the RBTA.

[Slakker]

My female Occelaris will follow my hand around the tank and bite me when she thinks i'm not paying attention. Doesn't really hurt, per se, but it is startling.

[billvan]

Funny reading this, as I cleaned my tank today, that the little brats drew blood on me today lol

[s ruppa]

last week i was transfering rock from to my new 220g. i had been back and forth between tanks for a couple days and my clown was getting pretty angry. she was attacking my hand non stop.

towards the end of the transfer i was crouched over the old tank looking in to see what rocks i wanted next when the clown fish launched itself out of the water and hit me in the face. we both fell to the ground. i scooped up the fish and tossed her back in.

steve

[Slakker]

Dang, steve...what have you been doing to that poor fish for the past week to make her THAT mad?! :lol:

[tigereye37]

I definitely believe it! I was transferring some overgrown xenia frags from my 12g to my 25g 10 mins ago and i thought mine was going to leap out at me! Pretty sad when a 2 inch fish is making you flinch........

[Bmgrocks]

I distract my 2" Black Occelaris with the fish net, she decides thats more fun to attack than my hand...

unnfortunately, the last time i was bitten, i pulled my hand out too fast and a wave of water flew out, and landed right on my blackberry...

well, sad to say i'm using verizion's free phone

[Elysia]

Sorry to bring this thread back to life, but it was such a relief to read! My ocellaris is a singleton, but she still bites my hands whenever she can. And like s ruppa, she once took a leap out of the tank to attack me, because I had my hand resting above the water on the tank's edge between doing some cleaning. Often I have water changes in which I replace whatever I have displaced when I over-react because I forget that it is going to happen.

What gets me is, the ocellaris doesn't bother a single one of its fish tankmates -- only my hands. I blame ORA for hand feeding them!