Clownfish waving its tail at sand?

[Jack_10218]

2 days ago I purchased a pair of adult clowns from my lfs, and today I saw the female go down to the substrate and start “fanning” the substrate with her tail, she wasn’t scratching or anything like that, is that normal? Or just a random thing they do?

 

[Wes10C]

Normal

 

[vetteguy53081]

If its the larger one, the female may be prepping a mating/spawning area

 

[Jack_10218]

If its the larger one, the female may be prepping a mating/spawning area

It is! That would be really cool to see!

 

[Westside Guy]

I have 2 Gladiators and it is a common sight to see. My male also likes to push snails away from the area where they sleep at night.

 

[Lepersquall]

yep my large clown I had would do this all the time, even go so far down as to hit the glass bottom. If you just got them it’s likely they are claiming that area as there territory.

 

[Westside Guy]

Without a doubt my 2 Gladiators are the most most fun to watch in the tank!

 

[Nick Steele]

My 2 black ice will guard a section of sand with their life. I had to move a frag from my rock to the sand for a few hours and my big female was constantly head butting it and waving her tail at the sand around the frag. They are definitely characters!

 

[Dom]

2 days ago I purchased a pair of adult clowns from my lfs, and today I saw the female go down to the substrate and start “fanning” the substrate with her tail, she wasn’t scratching or anything like that, is that normal? Or just a random thing they do?

This is normal behavior. They will clear substrate out of the way as adults in preparation to lay eggs. Think of it as housekeeping or even better "nesting".

 

[notsotank_savvy]

I have a clownfish and green chromie(along w small anenome&cleaner shrimp) that have gotten along just fine in the tank for at least six months now maybe eight until today when I removed some items from the tank to clean and disrupted their normal space I come back to find that clown fish, flicking up sand with tail, and charging and looking as if trying to bite, my green chromie who looks terrified and swims opposite direction of the clown every chance possible …the clown also seems to be just twitching or doing that same sand flicking movement up against the wall. What should I think or do about this?

 

[Terry Le]

They do get right mean. My used to draw blood if you get your hand too close