What is my maroon clown doing?

[USMC81]

I have noticed in the past couple of days that my maroon clown is digging a pit in the sand bed. It will removes the sand pieces out with its mouth and sometimes it gets really close and goes to shaking its body to carve out the gravel. I only have the one maroon and a banggai cardinal in the tank. Is this some sort of nest building? The maroon and the banggai stay close to each other around the depression in the sand.

 

[Eboman]

I had a tomato clown who did the same thing.

Except mine was a sand bed. She would get in there and kick up quite a storm of sand.

 

[Mike612]

Could just be looking for food. My damsel does the same digging your clown is doing. Also, the fish in your pic is a banggai cardinal, not a pajama cardinal.

 

[hotrodder]

I have a Clarkii that does the same thing. It digs a pit and moves the sand around. He will take bits of food and feed the cleaner shrimp.

 

[brandonberry]

Does it have an anemone to host in? I wonder if this is something that they only do if they don't have an anemone. My guess is that it is just bored. I used to have several cichlids that seemed to do this just so they would have something to do.

 

[hotrodder]

What's funny, right next to my Clarki is a huge frogspawn. I guess he just won't use it as a host.

 

[jandree22]

Same behavior here. My Ocellaris clowns have the 2" sandbed dug down to the glass in the back corner.

 

[PJsea]

My female Maroon clown does the same thing and it has an anemone. I think it's some kind of housekeeping behavior. There was never any food involved in this. I would have said it was associated with preparation for spawning, even though no male is present, but when the anemone moved away from the sand, the clownfish stopped.

 

[blackcloudmedia]

Its his form of rebellion. Anarchy fish!!! Anyways my damsel uses his tail to relocate quite a large patch of sand. He has moved over a square foot of sand before. He doesnt seem to be looking for food, I think hes just bored with the scenery