puzzling behavior /problem

[NaCl-H2O]

Ok, here is my sort of puzzling behavior /problem…
Background…
I have a 55 gal. tank that has been set up for 2yrs +, have a Maroon Clown, Sail Fin Tang, Baggni Cardinal, Purple fire goby, bicolor blenny, mandarin goby, mics. snail and crabs, etc.

So, I added another Cardinal and the Mandarin the first week of this year. I was having trouble with the tang bulling the new cardinal. So I moved the rockwork around to eliminate the “territories” in hopes that that would have fixed the problem. I well it stopped them from what I could see but the new cardinal hid I the rock and I never seen him eat and he ended up dieing a few days ago.
Well the mandarin is not messed with and is fine.
So now to the puzzling behavior…
After I fished out the dead cardinal I was watch the tank and doing a head count. I was sitting back across the room and noticed the clown come out from under the rock and go over toward the frogspawn I have, nice and big heads on it so I could see behind it where she went. Then I notice her “grab” and something… I thought it was food she was trying to get out of the center. Then I notice all these little pieces of “tentacles” floating away from where she was…? So then I got up and looked and low and behold she had ripped off some of the ends… I thought no big deal she missed and grabbed the ends when she was trying to get the food… Oh how wrong I could be… I sat back down and started watching the tank again to see if she would do it again. I noticed that the tang and her were posturing each other and doing the doe-see-doe. Not real unusual, but suspicious since they have not done this in a while. I figured ok territory dispute is still going on. Well then this proceeded to happen… she would come out from under the rock a bit, the tang would shoot over from the other side of the tank and open all the way up (the fins) and get in between her and the frogspawn. Then they would “argue” and she would go back under the rocks to the back of the tank, the tang would shoot off to the other side. She would sneak back out and look for him and start to go over to the coral again, sometimes she would make it and snip off some more ends sometimes the tang would see her and make it back and “block” her. This went on for hours cause I left and came back and they were still doing it. SO this back and forth went on I guess all day. It’s was as if they were arguing about something and the clown knew the tang liked the coral so her was going to tear it up to get back at him… (Ok I know I am placing human “aspects” on fish, but that is the best way I know how to explain it. I have not seen this happen today or yesterday but the backside of the frogspawn is torn up pretty good.
It was fully extended today when I left for work but I don’t know if this will end up being a chew toy. And even if I do move it to the other side will she just move and tear it up over there too…?

OK sorry for the long post thanks for any insight you can give…

Thanks,
Chris

 

[Tarasco]

Sounds to me like there are two things going on here.

First, the sailfin tang is probably too big for your tank. These guys are somewhat aggressive when they have plenty of space. When they are stuck in a smaller tank, they become much more aggressive. The fish is trying claim all the territory as its own, and will continue to harass and pester its tankmates. The only solution to this is to remove the tang.

Second, is your clown wild caught? I've heard of this behavior before, where they pull on, or bite, the tips of anemones that they host in. I'm sure that there's a reason for this behavior, I just don't know if off the top of my head. Anyways, it probably considers the frogspawn its anemone, and is doing what it would do to anemone.

The clown doesn't really have much of a chance to due its normal hosting behavior due to the pestering by the tang. I'm not sure what would happen if the tang is removed, it may continue to do the same thing. If it does, I would move the frogspawn to a different spot. JMO.

 

[NaCl-H2O]

About the tang, he is getting to big, I have a larger tank that I was going to setup, but never did. I knew he was starting to get too big and needed to do something. I got him when he was way small, about a half dollar size, fins and all. I guess this is the start of the “it’s all mine” thing and it was kicked started by the moving around of the rock.
I did start thinking today that the clown use to rearrange my mushrooms and stuff before they got attached, even knocked over a big piece of live rock to “cover” her hole she was hiding in. I thought this might be what she was doing again and trying to move the frogspawn closer to her “cave”. Maybe I need to break down and get an anemone but it will have to be a huge on she would likely kill a smaller one since she is big.
I don’t know if she is wild caught or not, I got them online several years ago and the other one die a while later after I got them… I assume probably so

 

[Cougra]

When I had a yellow tang in my tank, I noticed that it seemed to be a protector or peace maker between my Royal gramma and Clownfish. Whenever the Royal gramma used to try to attack the clowns my yellow tang used to swim between the two as quickly as possible and flare it's fins. The Tang never harmed anything in the tank but had a dislike for a hermit crab that wanted to get onto a particular rock.