Eye plucking clowns

[Azmeaiel]

Strange as it may sound over here in Aus we have had a few shipments of small clown loaches that have taken to plucking the eyes out of other fish. First I saw was a tank of angels and clowns (only two species in the tank) at a LPS where the owner had lost 15 angels overnight , all with both eyes removed. I was doubtful but in recent weeks people on some Aus fish forums have been reporting similar behavior, all from recently purchased clowns (last 4 months). Is this a known triat of 'some' clowns or very unusual behavior. It certainly has me stumped

[clownloach]

It's stumped me too, I highly doupt loaches would do that unless they were extremely threatened, but even so i don't think they would go after the eyes. Maybe someone else would know something bout that.

The angel fish can be very aggressive so maybe, they were attacking each other, but like i said this is very odd behavior to me.

sorry...

[Azmeaiel]

they seemed a little different in patterning (thicker) than the usual loaches we get in plus they had a more orange caudial. possibly a 'less' collected regional loach? mine certainly have never acted this way.

[stephen]

Funny that u should mention that i purchesd 3 clowns about 5 months ago and 2 of them had eyes missing sadly one of them died but the other 1 i have is the best clown that i have ever seen he is so playful