A. percula & H. crispa

[ThRoewer]

Has anybody percula clowns in a crispa anemone?

According to my books (Allen & Fautin) H. crispa is a host anemone for percula in the wild.

But as it looks I have a pair of percula that seem to have no idea what anemones are good for. They actually prefer a little flower pot over a much larger crispa.

According to the store these are wild caught percula and from their looks (=lack of deformations) that could well be.
But every wild clownfish I had before and even the ones I bred myself would go straight into the anemone or start the process of acclimating to it.
But these two jokers didn't even give it so much as an interested look.

 

[zooman72]

Give them time - it may take a few weeks for them to "move in"...

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Doubt yours are wild. I had a large Crispa several months ago. When I placed a pair of wild perculas from Solomon Islands they went right in it. I am not aware of Crispa hosting A. Perculas in the wild though. That did not deter the clowns from going in less than a minute after placement in DT.
Was able to dig up a pic of them. Unfortunately the male died (unknown cause) and the female (healthy) was traded to Vivid Aquariums.

 

[CoralsAddiction]

The longest wild clown ever took to go in an anemone was A. Ocellaris. There was an RBTA in my tank. After 4 days of introducing the wild caught Ocellaris he went in the anemone.

 

[phender]

IME, wild percs and ocellaris can be pretty picking when it comes to accepting new anemones.
I had a pair of wild ocellaris take 4 years before they accepted a green BTA that took up about half the tank.
I have a had at least two pairs of WC percs in at least two different H. crispa. I don't remember the process taking very long in either case.

 

[CoralsAddiction]

IME, wild percs and ocellaris can be pretty picking when it comes to accepting new anemones.
I had a pair of wild ocellaris take 4 years before they accepted a green BTA that took up about half the tank.
I have a had at least two pairs of WC percs in at least two different H. crispa. I don't remember the process taking very long in either case.

wow, 4 years for a wild Ocellaris to accept a nem is a long time. To OP, i guess your percs could be wild caught based on other peoples experiences. I never thought wild clowns could take a really long time to move into anemone.

 

[buddy23]

My female is wild caught and they both went to the nem as soon as it went in the tank.

 

[ThRoewer]

Doubt yours are wild. I had a large Crispa several months ago. When I placed a pair of wild perculas from Solomon Islands they went right in it. I am not aware of Crispa hosting A. Perculas in the wild though. That did not deter the clowns from going in less than a minute after placement in DT.
Was able to dig up a pic of them. Unfortunately the male died (unknown cause) and the female (healthy) was traded to Vivid Aquariums.

Very nice pair! Did they stay that way in the crispa or did they loose the black?Mine look pretty much like yours (black in the front and orange in the back) but the females middle bar is pretty much missing the forward pointing part and looks more like that of an ocellaris.

I got back from a 4 day trip and these clowns still flat out ignore the anemone. They rather stay in the flower pot during the day and hang out below the skimmer pump at night.

From this behavior I would say they are tank bred and haven't seen an anemone in generations.
They also prefer pellet food over brine shrimp (live or frozen) and won't touch the Hikari Mysis.

But from their body proportions and lack of physical defects I would rather guess them as wild caught. To my observations many captive bred ocellaris and percula have a slightly shortened upper jaw. I noticed that when I was breeding them myself and from what I now see in stores. I managed to keep it on most to a level where you had to know what to look for to notice it but there were always quite a few that had it clearly visible. What I have seen in stores around here confirms this. The ORA clowns they have in the stores around here are some of the worst I've seen.
But these two are perfect in that regard.

So I'm at a loss here. My tank bred ocellaris would jump into an anemone after being only ten days old and just got their first bar. I made a test with a magifica and half an hour after putting the anemone in the larvae tank all, (roughly 600) baby clowns were in the anemone - quite a spectacular sight.

The only other thing I might try is to get a third, smaller percula that is known to go into an anemone to teach them.

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Very nice pair! Did they stay that way in the crispa or did they loose the black?

They stayed black. However, my jet black female Onyx clown started losing its black on its fins and tail in my Magnifica. Once I removed the Mag she regained her black. I say that Mags and BTAs cause the most color loss in true percs.
Also, I have seen quite a few wild Solomon Islands True Percs and all of them with a dark front had the white bar pointing forward like the ones I posted above. Those are typically associated with Gigantea Anemone in the wild. Orange true percs are typically found in Mags.

 

[joshky]

I have a pair of Platinums (Percs) that went straight for a Heteractis Malu upon introduction to my tank. Unfortunately the malu got an infection and didn't make it out of the HT.

My duncans are kindly hosting them for now, but I have two more malus arriving Tuesday.

Give your percs some time, hopefully they'll show interest soon. :beer:

 

[CoralsAddiction]

Wild A. Perculas in Solomon Islands. You can see one of them has a straight white bar in the middle on one side. Contrary to what I said above they can have straight bars in the wild too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gocdKSPqbhM

 

[ThRoewer]

My my percula still ignore the crispa.
I think they are actually looking for a green gigantea.

The last few days I found the male sticking his nose into a colony of green star polyps.
And today he cuddled completely up with it.
Problem is that this is the preferred lookout spot for my gobies ant they aren't too happy about this squatter in front of their house...

Do gigs do well under LEDs (Kessil A360WE)?

 

[rishu_pepper]

My Onyx percs took about a month to find its H. Crispa home, dinner plate sized. Once the bigger fish took to it, the smaller one followed suit within a couple days. Now they never leave the thing, even during a tank swap they are practically stuck in the anem!

 

[ThRoewer]

Well, in my case the smaller male is looking for something better than a flower pot. The female seems so far to be happy with the flower pot and doesn't show interest for anything else yet.