Help. Tomato Clown eating RBTA

[berkeleyfish]

Hi Everyone,

I just picked up two RBTAs from Anemone and my stupid Female Tomato Clown has been taking bites and eating tentacles off the RBTA. Is this normal? I'm not sure what's going on? Will it stop?

The Tomato is about 4 years old and is mated.

I've had false percs before and they never did this.

Thanks!

 

[Slakker]

You might want to separate the clowns from the nems for a while to allow the anemones to get settled in...placing a strawberry basket or something similar over the anemone should do the trick.

 

[berkeleyfish]

K. Will the behavior stop though? Will he stop tearing off tentacles?

 

[Anemone]

Yem,

Is there anything else in the tank that the tomato was hosting in? I've seen tentacle sucking and tentacle nipping as part of the clownfish/anemone acclimation before, but I've also seen clownfish rip "wavy" items (corals/algae, etc) that were "in their space" or invaded the space of their chosen host (coral or anemone).

Kevin

 

[berkeleyfish]

Hi Kevin,

Nope the Clown hasn't been hosting in anything for a while. The only other coral in the tank are small mushrooms and one frogspawn that is far away.

I hope he'll just acclimate. I'm going to keep my eye on him. If he keeps it up, I'll just get rid of him.

Thanks!

 

[IPowderBlueTang]

I have seen my buddies Gold stripe maroons hosting in a RBTA and it would occasionally tear pieces off the Anemone and eat it. At first we thought it was killilling the RBTA, but it was normal behaviour since the GSM are still hosting in it and the Anemone is still alive!
My Tomato clown host in my Green LTA and never tears or nips the GLTA!