Clowns nipping Pajama Cardinals

[nynikki]

I picked up a trio of tiny pajama cardinals and it looks like my clowns are really beating them up. I had them all in a tupperware condo in the tank for a few hours yesterday, and knowing that it was almost time for lights out, I let them out and went into the kitchen. I came back 10 minutes later to find my clowns chasing one around the tank and nipping at it. That's when I noticed that all three now have part or most of their tails missing. We shut the lights out and the clowns seemed to ignore them for the rest of the evening, but then this morning I noticed the clowns chasing one around the tank again, and the lights are still off. I don't know what to do at this point. I obviously can not return these poor fish to the store in this condition. And now they appear to be hiding at the bottom of the tank behind the rock work - catching them is going to be fun. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to keep these fish? And if not, is there anyone out there in the Phoenix area willing to take on these poor babies?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Robert04]

Sounds like a territorial issue which they could get over with a few lights on and off, or if you think they wont survive that long the best thing in my opinion to do is move some of the rock work for a day and then move it back.. They will reajust to the "fake new" surroundings and hopefully they will be less aggressive. Do the clownfish have anything hosting them? You could try to introduce an anemone for them if you do not already have one.

 

[Fishfriend1]

Take the fish out (all of them), move the rockwork around, and then put the fish back. They will think (hopefully) that they are in a new tank, and will therefor make new territories. I put all of my fish in at about the same time and had no problems. Of course all of my fish are non-aggressive and small, idk about urs.

 

[Robert04]

You don't need to take them out and any less time spent handling them the better.

 

[nynikki]

These clowns have not really shown aggression towards anything. They do chase the Damsel around the tank, but they never damaged it. Thanks for the ideas about moving rocks, that may be the way to go. I have been thinking about getting an anemone, but I would have to consider getting new lighting I think, maybe. When we put the frogspawn in, we were hoping they would host that, they just seemed to avoid that part of the tank for a while. My poor cardinals will their tails grow back? - that's probably a dumb question!

 

[Robert04]

Yes they will, Just be sure to test for poor water quality because that can impede the process.

 

[Fishfriend1]

You don't need to take them out and any less time spent handling them the better.

Each to their own, i guess. Thats just the way i do it.

 

[nynikki]

Hello again all,

While I was waiting for your advice on here, I had been attempting to catch the only cardinal I could find to put him back in the tupperware condo. Sadly,the other two were found later by the clean up crew. He was at the very bottom behind the wall of rocks so it wasn't possible to net him really and after some time of freaking all the fish out, I ended up walking away for a bit leaving both nets and the plastic floating condo in the tank. What I noticed when I returned was that the clowns were so disturbed by the tupperware, and nets that they were leaving the little guy alone in his back corner of the tank. I thought this was similar to rearranging the rocks since it seemed to cause a disruption. We have some large rocks in the tank stacked so there isn't a whole lot of real estate to move them around that wouldn't disrupt other living things in there.

Well they were leaving the little guy alone, and he's been eating and had good color. So on Friday I took out one of the nets, it wasn't blocking anything really, just putting the clowns off. Today I was thinking I would attempt to remove the other foreign objects to see how they all did, but before I could even try, I noticed that the clowns were attempting to ambush the cardinal again. He's now back in the tupperware condo floating at the top of the tank. And as soon as he was out of that back corner, the clowns started hanging out there too. If I keep the cardinal in the plastic for a while, since now he's out in front, is it possible that he has a chance in this tank? And how long should I keep him in there? I'm beginning to think taking the clowns and the damsel out may be the only next best solution, which I would like to avoid if possible. I never liked netting fish, they get so freaked out.

 

[nynikki]

Bump! So has anyone successfully used the tupperware method to acclimate a new fish to the tank?

 

[nynikki]

Ok, so since I'm able to work from home today, I decided today would be a perfect time to let the little cardinal out of the tupperware. First I moved one of these large rocks off of the top of stack and set it at the bottom front part of the tank, it seemed to have disrupted all the fish as they all hung around opposite it and the clowns weren't even chasing the damsel as they usually do. I let the little guy out of his plastic jail and he swam to the back corner and hung out there for a while. A few hours later, the clowns were up to ambushing him again. I really don't know what to do at this point, a little advice would be nice here.