Clowns and currents

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Experiment397

Experiment397

Redtail Catfish
MFK Member
Feb 26, 2010
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Probably the Poly section
My royal clown knife seems abnormally shy. Could the current in my tank be an issue for him? He just hides all the time and even at night he will come out then quickly bolt back into the plants as soon as he starts to swim around. Could the current be spooking him? He's currently the biggest fish in the tank so I wasn't expecting him to be so shy. Around 10" right now. The tank has a 285gph power head and then the outflows from an fx5 pushing the water around so it doesn't have a distinct one way current. More of 3 mixing patterns of flow across the tank. I've tried changing up different things and the current is the only thing I can think of that could be causing him to not swim around unless he's really scared of some old rainbow fish and baby dats
 
These knives prefer little to no current and they are nocturnal normally.

Try reducing the current and see what happens.
 
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alright. the tank is dimmed for a good portion of the day. super intense lighting for 6 hours for the plants to grow then the T5HO fixtures shut off and its just the Satellite after that. My plus is set to do a dimmed Red/Green at night just barely enough to see the fish. None of the others seem to mind it so darkness shouldn't be an issue for him, even the shy as hell tire track and flounder will cruise around with the dimmed lighting
 
FriedFlowerHornFillet FriedFlowerHornFillet ive had him for a few months now. hes getting less shy over time, making a custom spray bar and overflow setup for my filters that should help to get rid of the river style one way flow path the tank has now. I dont think he likes the rainbowfish very much because as soon as they settle down for the evening he comes out. gets spooked really easily though and will bolt for cover pretty quickly. he demolishes any feeders and pellets that are in the tank when the lights are off or the moonlights are on though
 
with time he'll come out more. It took me about a year and a half to get my BGK out of it's shell he was very shy and scared of a half inch severum. Now he eats out of my hand. We play tug of war with nightcrawlers. Having a set schedule helps.
 
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It took my African knives about 4 months to get used to brighter lights, and then adding black sand and backgrounds helped make them come out periodically during the day
 
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he seems to be getting a little bolder, actually saw him snag a feeder last time i fed live. Just not what i expected from him. Ive kept normal clowns in the past and they were cocky- in your face- chasing tankmates- monsters, but this guy is a total wuss. At least he's super pretty, probably one of the nicer royals ive seen lately so im still happy with him. debating adding a P. afer to the tank as well, just not sure how the knives would get along and how it would fare with the rest of the tank
 
An Afer isn't super ideal imo. Maybe ask K krichardson about em :)
 
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Okay, i dont know much about them other than i really like the look of them and have seen them mixed with datnoids,polys and other "ancient" preds before which is the main focus of my tank
 
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