Clownfish hosting
- Thread starter joshua1
- Start date
ThRoewer
New member
My smallest Darwin ocellaris tried once to host one of my largest haddoni and it didn't end well - the anemone was just too big to be carried around by such a tiny fish.
But then he found some internal parasites to be hosted by him and I had a hard time to rid him of those unwanted guests.
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But then he found some internal parasites to be hosted by him and I had a hard time to rid him of those unwanted guests.
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Last edited:
Desertoasis
Member
I haven't tried it but am interested for sure. May have to give it a go at some point but I have a hard time even attempting to catch most my fish so that might be tough.
lpsouth1978
New member
I attempted it, ONCE, never again. My clown almost got eaten by the nem. I now let nature take its course. Either the clown will eventually take to the nem or it won't. IME, the clown will eventually accept the nem, though it can take a long time. I had one pair that would not even look at a nem and then over night, after more than 6 months, they dove in and rarely left.
Planetmacro
New member
lmfao
OrionN
Moved on
If the anemone is a natural host of the clown fish, finding it in a small tank is of no problem so there is no need to try to force them together. The premise of this tube activity is not sound because of this. I have seen, personally, a wild caught Clarki upon release from shipping bag drove straight into a LTA and promptly got stung and eaten. I only see this onetime in my 38 years keeping salt water aquarium.
I have not done liturature search recently but as far as I know, the reason why clowns are immune to anemone weapons have not been work out.
One thing you can do is cause a threat to the clowns and they will seek protection of a host. If you have appropriate hosts and sometime non natural hosts in the tank, put your hand into the tank and wave it around, the clowns will dive straight into the host anemone and often The unnatural host also. Give the clowns incentives so to speak.
Of course having appropriate hosts is everything.
I have not done liturature search recently but as far as I know, the reason why clowns are immune to anemone weapons have not been work out.
One thing you can do is cause a threat to the clowns and they will seek protection of a host. If you have appropriate hosts and sometime non natural hosts in the tank, put your hand into the tank and wave it around, the clowns will dive straight into the host anemone and often The unnatural host also. Give the clowns incentives so to speak.
Of course having appropriate hosts is everything.
ThRoewer
New member
From my observations, the slime coat of anemonefish, if intact, gives them a limited measure of protection that allows them to obtain full protection by getting the anemone's slime rubbing off and mixing with the fish's slime coat. That's why you often see anemonefish start making contact with the column of the anemone while avoiding the tentacles. They may actually have to do this for each anemone species separately if kept with different anemones. I saw that with my bicinctus who had to carefully "acclimate" themselves to the haddoni even though they already had full protection against the magnifica.
The issue with new fish, especially freshly imported, is that their slime coat has often been stripped away by handling them with nets or prophylactic medication. So these fish are pretty much completely unprotected from the anemone's sting. Dropping such a fish straight into an anemone is like feeding the fish to the anemone.
Planetmacro
New member
Allen conducted “field experiments” stripping the slime coat from anemonefish then releasing them back to their anemone. The anemone were stung and eaten.
