CB Tomato Pair

[Ashlique]

I finally found a Tomato Pair. I've been looking for quite a while and have only found 1 at a time and I really wanted to buy them as a pair. And they are a beautiful pair at that!

They are captive breed hybrids hence their more neon appearance and will probably not get as blood red as most tomatos so I'm told. The guy at the LFS said that since they are CB, hosting an anemone will be more of a learned trait instead of an instinctual trait. He suggested I put up a picture of an anemone to get them to "see" one and hope they still have some instinct to it and if they try to stay near the picture to try an actual anemone.

My whole thing is my tank is 8 months old. I added my first green star polyps about a month ago and its already growing onto my small LR piece in the corner of my tank. Then I found this pair and couldn't pass them up. With my water perms being perfect since I moved 6 months ago I figured I had waited well long enough. Now I'm wondering if I want to go ahead and fill up my 30 cube with corals and add an anemone later (which I said I'd wait at least a year before I added one), or should I add an anemone before I fill up my live rock with corals so I can hope it finds a likeable spot then locate corals around it.

Has anyone heard of this "picture" idea actually working? Should I get an anemone and just hope they host and if not, just have a lone anemone?

Oh and who is going to help me pick out names for this beauties?

 

[garygb]

First of all, captive bred really has nothing to do with clownfish being hosted. My captive bred ocellaris went for my H. magnifica in no time. Research has shown that clownfish are attracted to the sent of host anemones. They appear to be more attracted to their natural host species as well. In other words, ocellaris will take a BTA (which is not a natural host species for ocellaris) as a host in an aquarium, but they will abandon it for a H. magnifica.

In your case, BTAs are the natural host species. Fortunately, they also happen to be the host anemone species with the best success rate for survival in aquariums. I would suggest you put the anemone in the tank and let it find its place before adding coral. If you do it the other way around, the anemone is going to sting everything it touches while its finding its spot. Since your water parameters are "perfect," I think it would be fine to go ahead and add a nice size BTA at this point. You will want to make sure the anemone is ~twice in diameter the combined length of your two clowns.

 

[garygb]

"scent," not sent. lol. I need spell check.

 

[Ashlique]

Thanks for the quick reply...I'll be keeping an eye out for a healthy bta then