How long for nem to host clown?

ReefingRy

New member
I have 2 Picasso clowns and I just got a Rose Bubble Tip Anenome.

Any ideas of how long it takes to bond?

Any ways to speed it up?
 
Rushing anything in a reef can kill stuff. Let them all entirely alone. Just observe.
 
H there! I have a large rose bubble tip nem I have had over a year. I got a blood orange clown last October...and last week he finally started hanging out in the nem...I personally didn't care if he did or didn't....but it is cool to watch...so like others have said be patient. ..also not all clowns will go hang in nems....I have had several clowns in the past and some did and some didn't....
 
Your RBTA will move all around the tank for a while until it finds out where it is happy. Once it settles it will take the clowns some time to find it (if they ever do). It took about 4 months for my RBTA to host my clowns. Just let it be, if its going to happen it will on its own.
 
I have maroons with an rbta and it was instant. Although I've read that maroons and Rbtas do really well together. The male clown stays with the rbta 24/7
 
I had a pair of occelaris clowns for 6 months, then introduced an RBTA, waited another 6 months and the clowns never even looked twice at the RBTA. Even though I grew fond of the clowns, I really wanted a pair that would enjoy the RBTA. So, I end up rehoming the clowns to a friend and picked up a pair of gold striped maroons, didn't even take 24 hours...
 
I have 2 RBTAs (well, 1, but it split) and in a year and a half my ocellaris have never looked at them, despite being right in the nest proximity. She will swim across the aquarium from her nest to wallow in my frogspawn, then go back, right past the nems, to the nest. He's never looked at any of them.
 
IME, a week to a few months. It funny because they seem to go to corals first. I've heard of people putting both the nem and clowns in a bucket together for a few hours and they linked up... Never tried myself, just heard..
 
I have maroons with an rbta and it was instant. Although I've read that maroons and Rbtas do really well together. The male clown stays with the rbta 24/7

That is because the BTA is a natural host for Maroon clowns. The same would more than likely happen with Ocellaris and Percuals if they were offered any of the carpet anemones.
 
That is because the BTA is a natural host for Maroon clowns. The same would more than likely happen with Ocellaris and Percuals if they were offered any of the carpet anemones.

Excellent point. I had an ocellaris pair ignore a BTA, but as soon as I replaced it with a magnifica, they were in it in about 5 seconds.
 
I had a pair of clowns in a 20g with a RBTA and they went in the first day. That RBTA died (lack of lighting by a newbie.) When I got much better lights and a new RBTA, the clowns never went for it for 6 months - I then gave the nem to a friend and his clowns went in after a couple weeks.

Long story short - Seems random!
 
I have found often tank bred clowns don't really do it if that's a factor for you

Tank bred or wild caught makes no difference at all.

It is due to it not being a natural host as previously mentioned.
I also have picasso's that ignore non natural hosts, but when adding a magnifica they were in it before I even let go of the nem waiting for it to attach to a rock, less than 5 minutes.
Yours may eventually suck it up and accept that BTA, but they may also never accept it.
 
That is because the BTA is a natural host for Maroon clowns. The same would more than likely happen with Ocellaris and Percuals if they were offered any of the carpet anemones.

Yes I researched it before I got the clowns / rbta and was pretty confident it would be successful.
 
I not long ago traded off my Gold strip Maroon pair because my Female was destroying my tank. She would pick up frags and move them across the tank. Then she was mad because I put an elegance coral where she didn't want it so she started fanning sand. I'm talking about fanning out huge amounts of sand creating a sand storm in my tank. So I put a fairly large rock where she was fanning the sand and that B picked it up and moved it. The rock was 3 or 4 times her size. Well that night I caught both of them and put them in the sump. Traded Shifty for a pair of Mocha Ocellaris clowns and a RBTA. They still aren't being hosted by the RBTA but they're young and the female is now starting to host my purple candy cane. Well I moved the candy cane next to both of my BTA's so hopefully soon she gets the idea.
 
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