Introducing "The Beast!"

I was just reefing along, minding my own nano-business when a local reefing couple put their gorgeous 144g Oceanic Half Circle tank up for sale. Well, what could a gal possibly do but buy it and start her dream tank?!

Here is "The Beast" (excuse the missing doors and canopy, they'll be on there soon)

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/tank2.jpg[/IMG]

My previous tanks have been a standard 55g and a [URL="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1972594"]20g Elos Mini[/URL]... so this bad boy is a BIG step up for me!

[SIZE="4"][B]My goal[/B][/SIZE]
To have a set up like morbert with a family of clowns living together in a large colony of BTAs: [url]http://reefcentral.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1259398[/url]

[SIZE="4"][B]Rules[/B][/SIZE]
For this to happen I have set myself some rules:
[LIST=1][*]Must raise the clowns myself[*]Must have large number of BTAs before attempting to introduce more than 2 clowns[*]Must aquascape in a way that the dominant pair can claim a semi-secluded spot for themselves[*]Must be able to feed heavily to lessen clown in-fighting (and promote BTA propagation)[/LIST]
My original plan was to get a pair of Onyx Percs to be the parents, (because I loooove Onyx! ) ... but I kept coming across threads from people complaining that their Onyxs had lost their black coloration in BTA hosts. I know I could choose another anemone, (esp as BTAs aren't natural hosts for percs,) but I love RBTAs as much as Onyxs!

Then I found out about Sanjay's Photon Clownfish. These guys are hybrids from a Onyx Perc female x B&W Occy male (story here: [url]http://blog.aquanerd...ton-clowns.html[/url])

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/photon-clowns.png[/IMG]

They look like Onyx... but I'm thinking the B&W genes *might* let them hold their black coloration better in BTA hosts (I had a completely B&W occy in a RBTA in my first tank.) It's a long-shot... but for my dream of a shoal of black-white-orange clowns in a sea of Flame BTAs... I'm willing to give it a try!

Now, black photons are pretty hard to come by, plus I didn't really like the notion of breeding siblings; so I decided to have a go at pairing up a perc and occy myself. I have a 20g Elos Mini running already, so I thought I'd get things rolling on that front.

I bought the female Onyx from [URL="http://alphacorals.com/store/"]Alpha Corals[/URL]. She's a C-Quest lineage one from SA and she's beeeeautiful!

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/onyx.jpg[/IMG]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiC-vIC05Lg[/url]

After all the years of drooling over Onyx clowns online, I'd never actually seen one in person until I cracked the box open. Wow. They don't disappoint! She's actually gone even more black since I received her on Sept 13th -her dorsal fin is now completely black, so she's "officially" an Onyx.

The male was the smallest of 4 ORA Domino Occys at my LFS. They had B&Ws too, but I'd been admiring their Dominoes for sometime and thought it would be neat to try something a little different from Sanjay. I added the male to my tank a couple of days before the female arrived. This seemed to work out well because since then they've rarely left each others side.

[SIZE="4"]Introducing Guybrush & Marley...![/SIZE]

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/marlyguybrush-1.jpg[/IMG]

Occasionally the female will turn and snap at the male, but he'll just scamper away before being allowed to return to her side. I *think* I've seen him do some submissive wiggles, but he's generally so wigglesome, it's hard to tell. I've noticed a few nips taken out of this fins, but he's always allowed to eat and he seems completely besotted with her. Chances are he was a juvi when I got him, so I'm still bracing myself for things to get worse... but so far so good.

Here's a quick mockup of what their offspring "could" look like:

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161/TheAaarrrggg/onyx-domino-1.png[/IMG]

TBH they probably won't look like this, (Sanjay has just bred an Onyx x Midnight and the young all have their white bars) but it's fun to imagine.