Clown "sucking" on RBTA tentacle?

[ojonas81]

So I saw a very weird thing happen over the weekend. I have a RBTA and one of my clowns lives in it (female i believe). Over the weekend on several different occasions I saw that the female would suck in a whole tentacle into its moth, "gurgle around some" and then spit it out and move on to a different tentacle.

Is this normal "housekeeping" or is my clown trying to eat my nem?

 

[motojoe1988]

Normal. Seen my clowns do the same before. No issues at all!

 

[aandfsoccr04]

I've observed my clowns to the same thing with their anemone. It's a normal behavior IME.

 

[Big Dave PDX]

Yep, what the other guys said! LOL

 

[ojonas81]

Glad to hear that it is a normal behavior. Is it a cleaning ritual or any other reason it is doing that?

 

[worm5406]

It is actually getting the cells to fire in it's mouth and building up and immunity.

Just like humans eat honey from local bees makes them slightly less allergic to a bee sting.

They get a little dose when they chomp down and keep building the immunity.

There is one anemone that will even eat the host clowns if it wants to. I cant remember the name. Basically it tolerates the clown and can possibly eat it, if it so desires. Not that it has a calculating brain, just if the cells fire correctly.

Not really immunity but makes the coating of the clown mimic a neutral aspect so that the anemone does not fire into the clown.

 

[ojonas81]

Thanks worm5406. Kind of figuring/hoping it would be something like that. Makes sense. Not just my male need to me let into the nem by my female and everything is good.

 

[worm5406]

Yeah... good luck on that. She will have to take a vacation for that to happen. hahaha