Mad Clown

[trido]

MY looney tunes clown apparently has decided that it wants to host in the frog spawn but. It seems to be quite mad at the frog spawn and is biting the ends off of the tentacles. Should I be overly concerned?

 

[ChrisRD]

Give it some time, most likely the clown will stop eventually. If the coral's health is declining too rapidly and the clown won't let up, you may have to intervene.

 

[Rick357]

My understanding (from my Marine Biology days, it has been a few years) is that typically when clowns do this behavior, they are exposing their immune system to thier new host Nematocysts, which will cause their body to produce a slime coat that synthesizes a protein that matches the corals own, which keeps the coral's nematocysts from recognizing the clownfish, as a foreign body. In other words he should stop, but if he doesn't you might be fishing for a clownfish :wink: