Clown fish pale after nighttime

[dnas17]

So I woke up today after having the lights in my tank off all night to see one of my Clown fish kind of laying on the sand like he would if he was sleeping however his color was kind of off. I turned on the lights and left for 3 minutes and I came back and his color was orange again and he was swimming around. I am really scared, I don't know if this may be from stress because yesterday I was going to purchase a protein skimmer off a guy so he came over set it up we ran it in the tank and it seemed to really spook the fish but they were normal the rest of the night. The skimmer also spewed some stuff from the the tank it was previously in and I don't know if that may have harmed my fish(I didn't take the skimmer btw). Please help! Water params are PH at 8.0, Nirtire 0 Ammonia 0 salinity at 1.024 and temp is 77

[Papou]

My clown will be pale in the morning colors come back in a few minutes when they wake up.

[robt18]

Normal! Most of us don't look so hot as soon as we wake up either

[Dakotamay]

Normal! Most of us don't look so hot as soon as we wake up either

Hahaha. You are right. Your clown is fine. You just disturbed his sleep by turning on the lights lol. Sounds like he was having a nice sleep.

[Greatwhite]

I'm not sure that the "laying on the sand" part is normal... My clowns swim up and down in the corner of the tank at night.  All the rest of my fish find nice little spots in the liverock to "lay down" though - so maybe MY clowns are weird.

I've noticed a lot of fish lose color over night.  My yellow tang used to look almost white at night, and my mandarin looks grey when he's asleep.

[dnas17]

Its not that he was lying down just kind of hovering swimming but it didnt appear to be abnormal hes swimming fine now

[Papou]

When the clowns go to their place for the night you will most likely see them hovering or bobbing, for 3 to 4 hour es during the night they are practically motionless laying flat on the surface ,bottom or against their host coral .
This is my observation.



Phil

[dnas17]

Well looks like everything is okay, my clowns swimming around normally and happy. Thanks everyone for the help.

[Dakotamay]

I've noticed a lot of fish lose color over night.  My yellow tang used to look almost white at night, and my mandarin looks grey when he's asleep.

Yes now that you mention it. Our mandarin does the exact same thing. You'd think for sure he was dead.