Black spots on clown fish - Xenia?

[Keith P]

My clown likes to hang out in the corner of my tank in a frog spawn. Recently the front of xenias in my tank started growing on the glass near the clown's corner. The clown is eating (or atleast nipping) at the xenia! Is she hungry or is this territorial?? I think the black spots are stings from the xenia. Is this correct??

 

[MikeyZO]

Territorial. They've been known to move rocks and coral frags around if you put them too close to their home. And as far as the black spots on the clown, I dont think the sting from xenia would be enough to hurt a clown.

 

[DontXtripNfall]

Xenia won't sting a clown... I don't even think xenia can sting and xenia can throw off limbs and attach to other places for various reasons.

 

[KathyC]

Regarding the black spots on the clown..this is very common. As long as all of your water parameters are testing fine and the clown is acting/eating normally, I wouldn't be concerned about them.
There are many threads about this on the web. Seems to be most common in tank raised clowns, but presents no issues for the fish. Sopmetimes they fade (depending on what corals they host, other times they remain in the fish).

 

[mandown123]

my tank bred clowns had some weird black spots on them that just looked out of place, but as they have grown the spots have disappeared. are your clowns juveniles?

 

[Zuska]

or it can be black ick no??

 

[mandown123]

i doubt it. it can be i guess, post pics

 

[Pedro Nuno Ferreira]

Hi Keith P ;-)
It could be Black ich but without photographs it is not easy to help you, so if you can, please help us to help you. Now in the event of being in fact black ich, if you perform a search with google on black ich you will find results such as these ones...have a look here and here and here and here. Black ich is a disease caused by a small tubellarian worm of the genus Paravortex which you can see also here and here.
I usually do not recommend treatments as they are distressing and distressful both to the fish as well as the system biological stability and the owner, and that's bad. Normally, as KathyC wisely mentioned

Regarding the black spots on the clown..this is very common. As long as all of your water parameters are testing fine and the clown is acting/eating normally, I wouldn't be concerned about them.
There are many threads about this on the web. Seems to be most common in tank raised clowns, but presents no issues for the fish. Sometimes they fade (depending on what corals they host, other times they remain in the fish).

its common and should not be a problem if the water parameters are good and the fish is eating/acting normally, a bit like if you catch a cold, you put on some warm clothes and eat a tasty and warm chicken-broth ;-) and at the most you get an effervescent aspirin with C vitamin and thats it ;-)...you are not sent to an hospital:Yikes:;-)...so unless things turn nasty, keep the good husbandry practices and please keep us informed so that we my help you further if needed, which most probably wont be.
Keep calm as fish sense our anxiety, and keep the good husbandry practices.

Cheers
Pedro Nuno ;-)

 

[marrone]

Check out this thread, it contains info on Black Ich and black spots on clown fish. It also has some pictures to match your clown up against.

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/fish/37902-black-dots-clown.html

 

[Keith P]

my clown looks like this (not my picture):

So I guess it's just stings...

A friend is picking up the xenia's tomorrow. We'll see if that fixes things.

 

[MikeyZO]

frogspawns do sting them, and since its a different kind of sting then an anemone, thats probably what happened.

 

[Keith P]

My fish has been basically living in the frog spawn for the last 6 months..

 

[Floating Paper]

wow yeah thats weird. i want to know if that clears up when you get rido the xenia