BTA and Clowns

[TwistedMind]

So i put a GBTA in my DT today and the clowns pretty much ignored it for 6 hours.

However once the LED's turned off I snuck up and saw my female in the GBTA and it looked like she was really working the thing over.

Is this normal? It looked like it was trying to eat her and she was smacking it around.

I went back over there just now and shes sleeping inside the Nem but the male is hovering around outside it. He tried to go in and she chased him off.

Is this also normal?

I'm assuming that the clown went nuts on the nem to spread some of her slime on it to let the nem know that she wants to host. Since shes still in it and it appears to have stopped trying to eat her I am guessing whatever she was doing worked.


In case you can't tell I am still pretty new to all this.

Nem has a tight closed mouth, looked a little bleached at the LFS, but once I put it in the tank I turned the power heads off and after 5 minutes its foot was attached to the rocks.

Turned the power heads back on and it spent the next 45 minutes migrating to the bottom of the tank where it wedged its foot and half of its body under a piece of live rock.

Anyways pics tomorrow before I goto work. I hope the male gets to move in soon.

I also think I am pretty lucky that the female was interested and the nem agreed within 12 hours of being introduced.

Although my clowns are wild caught, so maybe they have previous experiance with nems, unlike tank breed specimens.

 

[dc]

I'm not sure there is such a thing as normal as far as clowns go. I've had 3 pairs and one single. None of them acted the same.

But yes, all of the above seems fairly normal.

My tank now has 2 anemones and 2 perculas. It took a month for them to find the anemones and as soon as they did they started fighting. I wasn't sure either would live through it as they were pretty vicious. I assume they were fighting over who was getting to be the female still not sure. Then all of a sudden they quit fighting and share the anemone during the day. At night they sleep in separate anemones.

 

[TwistedMind]

As promised pics

 

[CoralReeferGal]

When our clowns (RIP) finally started hosting, the female would not let the male in the nem either. Not sure if its normal or not, but you're not alone LOL.

 

[rssjsb]

You're right that the anemone is pretty bleached. I would not be surprised to see it move up as it recovers and can handle more light.

As dc says, what you're seeing is normal clown behavior. If the clown beats it up too badly, it will retract or deflate and try to move. If so, you might have to intervene so it can recover. Otherwise, just keep an eye on the situation.

 

[TwistedMind]

Thanks for the advice, will update when I have something useful to post. Nem is still in the same spot when I just got home so so far all is well.