Clownfish drew blood!

[DinoMagnet]

Jk no but seriously are clowns aggressive towards humans? I have two mocha storm clowns that have never lunged at me. But yesterday when I was cleaning my tank one of them literally tried to rip my finger off (overreacting lol ) I would like to add I have noticed for the past few days they do their little dance quite often. Could this be the reason why they are being hostile towards me? Mating etc

 

[CMMorgan]

One of my clowns used to attack the diamond on my wedding ring. I think she thought it was something to eat...

 

[CMMorgan]

Clownfish are built from hate, and fuelled by rage. They may be small, but their level of anger is vastly disproportionate to their size. Even the clowns that seem gentle, they're just waiting. Watching.

My maroon clown hasn't yet attacked me, but I know it's only time. At 2-2.5" it is by a large margin, the smallest fish I have. Nothing bothers it though. Not even the 18" moray goes near its den.

 

[cnye]

My female B&W has added two fairy wrasses, a damsel & a clown goby to her kill list. She eats the snorkel off of the nassarius snails & picks them up / throws them at the glass.

if I rearrange anything or put in a new frag she gets visibly irate & will vibrate angrily while trying over & over to dislodge / undo the changes

I’ve had her 13 months & since day one she has tried to kill me anytime I’m near the tank. She will breach the water a little bit to get a hold of the soft part of my inner arm when scraping the back of the tank... little SOB. I love her though, she’s certainly entertaining... little devil spawn.

 

[Hansensjo]

Our clowns are class a jerks. They are a mated pair though and they do lay eggs, so they're especially protective if they have eggs in their pot (we gave them a clay pot to host/lay in). The female is definitely more aggressive than the male. We've found though that if we slowly move our hand in the tank they don't care and don't find it as frightening.

They've actually gotten too aggressive with most of our other fish though that were cycling a new tank (32g) that will be just for them, anemones, and some invertebrates. We may eventually move our mandarin in there too since they get along just fine and it would let the mandarin get his copepods easier.

If you watch your tank for about an hour, you'll be able to tell which is female and which is male. The females will control the male, you may even watch his submissive "seizure".

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

My singleton Darwin clown bites me whenever I work in the tank. I see it coming every time, but I still instinctively pull my hand back every time it bites me!

Jay

 

[Mike from TN]

My Snowflakes both bite but the female flat out attacks my hand. I love them to pieces but they are EVIL.
The male is “Joker” and the female is “Pennywise”! Fitting names, dont Y’all think?
On a funnier note. While I’m being bitten, my cleaner shrimp is usually grooming my arm hairs.

 

[dhnguyen]

It gets worse once they are a mated pair.

 

[Alexopora]

My ocellaris are fine....so far . But i have seen this really feisty Clarkii clown at a coral store. The employee was trying to get a Favia and a Ricordea for me from one of the frag tank but whew that Clarkii only wanted blood. As they didn’t have forceps, it really was a funny sight watching the employee struggle to quickly pick up the corals.

The funny thing was that there was a large maroon clown in the tank too. But the maroon was just watching the entire fiasco.

 

[DinoMagnet]

Well now the slightly larger one tries to jump out the water to nip me, yesterday for my WC I had to hold my siphon by the hose and not put my fingertips in. Boy it was trying. Crazy fish

 

[DHill6]

I had a tiny pair of Ocellaris, as they grew they would break SPS coral loose and place them across the tank away from rock. They were Jaws mowing down the coral. I gave them away along with their anemone which wasn’t even close to the coral they were destroying. My White Wyoming female is calmer now that she’s 11, swims in front of the tank begging and eats from your hand. When my hand is in the tank she swims alongside sometimes kissing my hand, not biting it. The court Jester has picked up her antics and swims in front also.