Maroon Clown doing "burnouts" in the sand?

[grimlykindo]

I noticed my maroon clown lately will go down to the sandbed and fan his tail really fast and make a huge sand cloud in the tank :worried2: - There is only the one maroon clownfish in my 40B. Tankmates are a firefish and coral beauty. Its actually quite annoying because I have very fine sand and it clouds the water when he does it. Is this normal clownfish behavior?

[Toddrtrex]

That is what clowns do. IME, Clarkiis and maroons are really prone to doing this.

[Daimyo68]

My clowns, in 2 separate tanks, both do the same thing. the get right down on top of the sand bed, and start "fanning" the sandbed. The clown in my 12g BioCube, almost always clears one of the corners right down to the glass bottom, usually a 1"x2-3" area.

In one respect, it's annoying as hell, but in another, he's somewhat keeping the sandbed stirred up, and free of debris.

[nikon187]

Yep, 100% normal behaviour. There is no way to stop them.

[Chiefsurfer]

could she be trying to clear a flat area to lay eggs? If it's the only one, I can only assume that it has turned female, maybe if you don't have any flat smooth areas, she is trying to get the sand out of the way down to the glass so she can lay eggs? Just a thought.

[armani4o3]

my marron clown's do the same thing

[Frogmanx82]

Once he has his main hollow carved out it shouldn't be so bad. They will exhibit that behavior all over the tank which I find keeps the sand looking cleaner and moves detritus off the sand bed.

[grimlykindo]

Thanks for the replys guys! I was concerned at first but my clown just looked so happy while he was doing it. He would turn around and watch his sand cloud contently.

[firebirdcrzy]

my maroon did the same thing in the back corner right down to the glass, then called that area home. Whenever a hermit or snail wondered to close it would grab it in its mouth and carry it to the other side of the tank. Pretty funny to watch.

[lighthouze08]

Yep, 100% normal behaviour. There is no way to stop them.

Take it out of the tank, give it a good spank then put it back in :lol:

[Sisterlimonpot]

ahh he's just keeping his tires warm looking for a race!! :D

[rafa316]

Clowns are so funny like that... :p

[wiz224]

Mine used to do that a lot then it started to host my leather coral. Still does it occasionally.

[TRichardson79]

my true perc pair are notorious for doing this exact behavior. I push the sand back over it and the next morning it is cleared out. I got tired of moving the sand back over so I just let them have their fun now.
I catch myself chuckling every so often when I see a cloud of sand.

[Playa-1]

Maroon Clown doing "burnouts" in the sand?
Just wait till it's starts doing the doughnuts :lol: