Mixing tomato and other clowns?

[brad]

10 years ago, I bought a tomato clown on a whim, since I already had an anemone. I eventually added more, got a bigger tank, more anemones, etc. Now I am back down to 2, and I am tempted to try another clownfish species (I never have). My current tank is a 270. I know the 2 clowns I have are super aggressive, but I hate to part with them, I think the oldest has been with me 9 years and the younger for 5 years. Right now, I have a lot of anemones, but plan to get rid of some as I want to transition to SPS.

So I can:
1) Stick with tomato clowns, just buy more of them.
2) Try to find a good home for these two and try something new.
3) Introduce a passive clown (perc, etc) and hope the tank is large enough mine can't hunt it down and kill it.
4) Introduce another aggressive clown (large cinnamon) and hope it doesn't hunt down and kill my tomatos.
5) Wait another decade without buying or giving away clowns and these will probably be gone.

 

[ShelbyJK500]

If you're wanting to do something new, I'd find a good home. You have a large enough tank in theory though to add another pair if you have nems on far ends of the tank?!

 

[velvetelvis]

IMO, options 2 and 5 are the most realistic. It doesn't matter the species; your tomatoes will violently resent (and try to expel by brute force) any other clownfish that invade their territory. I don't know if a 270 is really big enough to avoid this.

One LFS in my area has a very large pair of cinnamons in a 600G display tank, along with a couple of anemones. They mostly hang out on that side of the tank, but I have no doubt that the female would dispense swift justice if she found any other clowns besides her mate in the system...and she does "patrol" regularly.

There's always the option of setting up another tank...