I don't believe same clutch matters, people say this because they have seen it done this way so many times that it defeats the RC dogma. When there are too many clowns in a tank for territories to be established or for one clown to be singled out the clowns do not fight. Six clowns will not give you this in a 120. If you have an anemone the dominate clown will take it and defend it and eventually take a mate. If there is a large group of clowns they will exist as a satellite school - this happens in nature. This is an over simplification but you will start to see the dynamic. With say three clowns in the tank a pair will form and sometimes even without fighting the third clown of the same species will isolate itself even from feeding and die. So there are times when different species are an advantage for multiple clowns. I could give you examples of what has worked for me in the past and why but there are lots of variables, lots of techniques that work and lots that do not, this is why people just say no it can be done so often. With multiple anemones I have added a pair for each anemone with the larger more dominate pair, always a different species, added second. I have also added a school small of clowns of the same species to fill an empty anemone with a different species pair in a different anemone. The school makes it too hard for the dominate pair to figure out who to go after, a large second anemone also helps the school avoid a bad result. Something may have to be done as the school matures depending on factors as already mentioned. Now please ignore those angered by these observations. They have made statements to the contrary many times and we all know what experts they are. One last observation, when adding fish of any species to tank where you suspect trouble may occur it helps to acclimate the fish for few days in water from the same tank to keep that fish from being singled out by smell. Example a tank with a Niger trigger leaves the four blue damsels in the tank alone, add a couple of new ones and the new ones are hunted down by smell as intruders and eaten. This also helps when adding new clowns. I add these comments as I have done these things and have had them work peacefully in tanks for several years without a problem. Occasionally i try something that does not work, i make observations and try to learn what I can from these, it happens and the occasional set back is not sin - some self righteous poster will disagree of course... I will start worrying about it when corals and fish live as long for my detractors as they do for me.
- Mark
(Given they will not be in there forever, just growing out a little). Water quality maintenance is also huge, as siphoning waste is a daily task, for those wondering about a healthy environment.
