clown eating colt coral

My clown has started taking bite sized chuncks out of my colt coral. Is this normal or just bad behavior.

 

It is very interesting for some reason from time to time our male perc will pick at some of our leathers....

 

you sure its not eating something on the coral and taking part of the coral with it?

 

I hope it helps...

Cheers!

 

i've seen this behavior a couple times. Its rare, but it happens sometimes. btw, does your clown have an anemone

 

Give that lady a cigar.. Thats the nature of the beat.. It want to host in that colt as an anemone and wants to make it move.. I have seen them rip tentacles from anemones to make them move.. and kill corals I have had my elegance about killed by a pair of the SOB's. Did i mention I hate clowns and if I could catch these two I'd love to flush them.. Trap smat little ^&*^%$$%^&****

 

Don't You Flush My Fish!

 

I don,t have a anenome,m clown is just shifting between some large hairy mushys and the colt coral. One thing that has changed is that I have just introduced a blue hippo tang to the tank and he keeps swimming through the colt coral and resting in it ( but thats another story any one know about that, is it normal.)

 

Ahh, another that makes saltwater tanks cooler than most FW tanks........Fish personaloties and behaviors, not always instinct.

 

It doesn't matter if your clown has an anemone or not. If it's nesting in your coral, it will consider that coral an anemone and behave the same way that it would if it really was an anemone, including nipping at its host to try to entice it to move to "safer" territory.

Hippo tangs tend to "lay down" when they're resting and they will prop themselves against anything in the tank, including rock and coral to do so.