darkening clowns

My clown fish are starting to turn dark. there forheads are really dark and they are getting black spots on em. is like gray hair for clown fish? lol

LOL It usually means they are maturing and your food can also have this effect on them.

Got any pic's?

Those little retards never sit still. i'll try thoe. and i feed them all kinds of food thoe

Hmm that seems weird, I haven't seen them do that. Maybe Chris or Barb knows.

And this is what i feed em all. along with reef nutritions fuzzyfites, cyclo-pees brine shrimp, and then sum formula one "the algae kind" frozen gum drop things. but i mostly feed em fussy fites and the 4 cans of food. and i just randomly feed each

Yeah they look dirty like the need a bath or something. lol

Your feeding them pretty good foods. The spots are odd, keep an eye on them

The dark spots are most likely stings from coral. Mine had a similar problem when then started hosting in my zoanthids. As for the darkening, I have heard rumors of them gaining darker colors in response to thier environment. For example in a tank that has a black background is more likely to have clowns that have areas of black in them. What are they hosting in?

Interesting my tomato clown used to be bright orange and is now very very dark. Seemed to start when hosting with the nem and has progressed more so. It looks worse now that a bright orange tomato is hosting in the same nem with him(her).

They dont really host in anything anymore. at night time they kinda lay on sum red mushrooms

That could be the source then....I noticed that when I separated mine I had the female in my fry tank and her spots went away while the male who continued to host the zoanthids kept his black blotches.

I'm thinkin' it's what they're hosting in too...our pair of clowns (in a separate tank) turned nearly black all over within months of hosting in the monster carpet...yet our other clowns are all still a deep bright orange and they're hosting in a harmless toadstool...

though usually the coloring is more subtle than that and I never saw spots...hmmm it is very strange...maybe they are getting burned from their host?

Thats what im thinking.

ALrighty thanks err one. so just some simple red shrroms could be doing it huh. They have been like that for months and finally decided to ask why. after a female friend of mine asked why they had spots. Hopefully within a month ill have my new 100 gallon set up and i can relocate my clowns

Mine have darkened up considerably since I purchased them.

With that said they are always spawning so I assume its related.

that's exactly how our clowns looked when they started getting darker...and yes, I think it does also have something to do with mating/spawning too...but as yours look, it's subtle and pretty even all over - without spots. (cool pic btw )

Hey Marlin do they still have the spots?

yeah i havent done anything him them yet. havent had anything to do with em. i may be gettin an rbta maybe they will move to that and leave the shrooms alone

A lot of color change comes about with clowns becoming sexually mature. Changes in diet, especially if it contains that red algae(forget the name), can also change their color over time. But all those changes are pretty even and uniform across the fish. I don't think that's what you have.

99% sure it's just from getting stung. Zoa's are usually the culprit and i'm looking at a big colony of them right there in your picture.

1% chance it's black ick. And your fish are doomed!

But seriously, they'll be fine. Chicks dig scars.