[Sebastien]

We are fairly new to the hobby, having purchased an established tank (90 gal reef with 2 percula clowns and a purple tang) a few weeks ago. Things were going smoothly until we decided to introduce a cleaner shrimp three days ago. We believe the purple tang ate the shrimp as we can't find it and only saw what we think are antennas floating at one point.

Then, our female percula showed black spots. This may not be related to any of the above, but I wanted to give some background info relating to recent changes in the tank. Can anyone help us figure out what the black spots are and if we need to do anything about it?

 

[ChiReef]

There was another post in the general reef forum about black spots on clowns. It seems that it's normal for them to appear, my one clown has them and seems perfectly normal.

 

[Sebastien]

Thanks,

The percula does seem to be in good health. I'll just keep monitoring it, but I don't expect it to deteriorate.

 

[mdsiman]

Both of my clowns have black spots on them. The spots are underneath. But there both doing fine too

 

[ScruffyRubicon]

The spots are typically caused by them hosting in a coral other than an anemone.

What you have pictured is an ocellaris though, not a percula.

 

[ynot65]

The cleaner may have molted, keep an eye open for a few days as they will hide after molting for a few days until their shell hardens. Welcome to the reef

 

[Sebastien]

Thanks for the replies.

The clown fish appears to be doing fine, no signs of stress or otherwise.

On the plus side, we found the cleaner shrimp again. As ynot65 suggested, it was likely molting (what a coincidence that it did so a day after putting it in the tank!) and we now see "Jacques" almost every day.