Carpet Anenome Host

[shaginwagon13]

I just put a green carpet anemone in my tank today and both my clowns are now swimming in it. It took about 30 min for the clowns to start swimming in it..is this normal?

 

[SaltH2Oaddict]

Wonderful! We had a green carpet in our first tank that we got specifically for our clown and our clown never went "in". Our carpet got huge too. Pushed rocks around sometimes.

 

[shaginwagon13]

Thats great then! Im happy it took so little time

 

[snorvich]

Yes, that is a very good thing. Usually you have to research what anemones your clown will associate with but I guess you got lucky and got it right the first time. Congratulations!!

 

[shaginwagon13]

Ya im really happy I got it right...kinda be fluke? haha I bought Silver-sides to feed the anemone once a week will the clowns also feed it?

What exactly is the point of the clowns hosting anemone's?

 

[greenbean36191]

The clowns don't host the anemones. The anemones host the clowns. What we know for sure is that the clown and anemone both get protection from predators from the association. The anemones also grow faster with clowns than without. The ammonia excreted by the fish helps fertilize the zoox, which is probably the main reason for increased growth. We also just found out that having a host causes a MAJOR reduction in the metabolism of the clownfish, though I can't really share all the details. Having a host offers the clown huge energetic savings though.

Beyond those reasons, we don't really know why the symbiosis exists since it's poorly studied, but there are probably lots of metabolic advantages.