Are my Oscellaris likely to jump?

[Abarnswell]

I have a new pair of young Oscellaris in my 15g. reef tank. Day 2: they are doing well. I like to keep my tank uncovered. Are they likely to jump out? I know some reef fish jump a lot -- what about Oscellaris? Mine seem to stay in the middle to lower regions of my tank. I don't see them going much into the higher regions of the tank.

I know it's possible that any fish could jump out.... I was just wondering if they are known for doing that. ??

 

[incysor]

Clowns generally aren't jumpers.

If they do, then you either have a water quality problem, or you have something else in there that's going after them.

B

 

[drty811]

i agree with incysor. never had a problem with any of my fish even my jawfish and firefish.

 

[Abarnswell]

That's good news, because I really don't want to put the glass canopy back on. They seem to be doing well, although one is definitely a better eater than the other one.

Thanks!!

 

[incysor]

Usually if you put in a pair that's the same size one will become very agressive about getting as much food as it can. This one end up growing rapidly. Once it's significantly larger than the other the sex of the larger one will switch to female, and the smaller one will be the male.

B

 

[travis]

I have three clowns and never had a problem with them jumping. and Incysor I did not know that about the adaptive sexing of the clowns, but that's nice to know.

 

[skipm]

Travis,
They can only change once and that is from male to female. Once they are female that is it.

 

[Chubosco]

That's interesting. I never knew that. Never had much luck with clowns.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Everyone has different experiences.

Last night one of my Perculas jumped out of my new 1 gallon pico at 3 am. I don't know why but I woke up after hearing him jump since it sits right on my night stand.

I vaquely heard like a small splash followed by a small thump, I get up and glaze my focus on the pico and only see one perc swimming alone.

So I start looking on the night stand and nothing, great he's on the floor and I probably squished him, but as I feel with my hands he's on the left side of the night stand on the carpet.

I pick him up and toss him right into the pico expecting to see him float, and he immediately starts swimming and is reunited with his partner; it was luck for this little guy.

So this moringing I tell my wife we have to trade them in becuase they are going to jump again.

I have a small theory on why clowns may jump, they get scared if you make sudden movements in the night and since they cannot see, they react by darting; if the tank is small like in my case it leeps out.

I had a small saddle back clown leap out of my pico at night when I approaced the tank to suddenly in the night.

Mike G

 

[sadielynn]

Our maroon jumped out for no apparent reason what so ever . I had gone upstairs to do some chores , when I went up he was happy and in his tank , when I came back down he was carpet surfing I was upstairs a total of maybe 10 minuutes when I came down and found him a cool 4 -5 feet from the tank.. there are no other agressive fish with him just some chromis . The kitten and cat were all upstairs sleeping when he jumped so we ruled that out, we placed him back into the tank where he has been ever since. We never could figure out why he jumped out nothing looked amiss so I figure that he was pretending to be a dolphin :mrgreen:

 

[incysor]

Mike,

I think your theory of them reacting stongly to unexpected movements is probably good...However I think the real problem in your case is that the tank they're housed in is too small. If they make a sudden dash because they're startled, they just pop out of that small a tank. This doesn't mean that they're normally jumpers, just that they don't have room in that tank for they're natural pattern of movement.

B

 

[dragon79]

Not just that, when the fish fight, they try and get away, and by them darting as they do, they end up jumping out by accident, only because they were trying to evade an attack.