clowns and anemones?

[canes52]

Is there anyway to speed up the process to get a clown used to an anemone

[cloak]

Not that I'm aware of. It's just a waiting game. Some clownfish will bypass an anemone all together and end up in your frogspawn. Go figure.

[Korrine]

+1 And some tank bred clowns will never host. What clown and what nem do you have?

[canes52]

I have an LTA and a pair of perculas

[celamb89]

just time... there is no set time for them to "find" the nem, it could take a little/long time or never happen... I had an LTA and my ocellaris took about 3 weeks to find it...

[garygb]

Tank bred vs. wild caught clowns makes absolutely no difference as far as whether it will go to an anemone or not. What does make a difference is combining a natural host anemone species with a natural clownfish symbiote. Perculas are not naturally hosted (anemones host, not clownfish) by LTAs.

By the way, on the Clownfish and Anemone Forum there is a listing of natural clownfish/anemone pairings.

[preef]

I remember reading on a forum of a guy that set up a laptop in front of his tank and played videos of clowns in nems all day. When he came home his clown was in the nem but he never went in before. I've also read about people taping pictures to their tank to teach the clown. I tried that but it didn't work for me.

[SwampyBill]

Nope...The key is patience & luck...If they're going to accept the anemone as their host, it'll be on their terms, not ours; & it might not happen at all. I've had clowns take anywhere from a few hours to 6 months to dive into an anemone. If you have a large enough tank, maybe put another anemone at opposite end of tank so the clowns have a choice of which one to go into. Good luck!

[elegance coral]

There is a difference between the drive to find a host in captive bred fish and wild caught fish. I wish there wasn't, but there is. We can not alter an animals environment, especially through the developmental stages, and expect it to have no effect on the animals behavior.

Just one example. My LFS has a magnifica in their display tank. They wanted a pair of clowns to use it as a host, but wasn't sure which species to add. I assured them that their pair of ORA picasso's would be in the mag my morning, if they added them. On my advice, they did just that. Morning came, and the brain damaged fish were swimming all over the tank. Days turned to weeks, and the fish were still oblivious to the fact that they should be living in the anemone. It was well over a month before the fish took up residence in the magnifica. If these were wild caught perculas, fish that have spent the vast majority of their lives in the security of an anemone, they would have been in the magnifica in no time.

I still believe that if the natural host is provided, CB fish will move into it. I just don't believe the drive to do so is as strong as it is in a wild caught fish.

[Chris27]

Originally Posted by preef

I remember reading on a forum of a guy that set up a laptop in front of his tank and played videos of clowns in nems all day. When he came home his clown was in the nem but he never went in before. I've also read about people taping pictures to their tank to teach the clown. I tried that but it didn't work for me.

Never heard of playing clown porn in front of the tank.....some people just have too much free time.

[garygb]

Elegance, what you describe has not been my experience on multiple occasions with both tank-bred ocellaris, tank-bred perculas, and tank-bred maroons. In the case of the first two, they immediately went into my magnificas. In the case of the maroons, immediately they went to my RBTAs. I've also read others describe the same behavior. So, perhaps the clownfish you were describing were indeed "brain damaged." In my case, the clownfish were also ORA fish.