my anemone ate my anemone fish

[ssterling]

I have had a very large hadonni for about six months now and it has looked great since day one. I feed it weekly for fun even though it has always looked very healthy under my halides. Anyway, I have had some tank raised ocellaris since before I got the anemone that have never taken to it (not unusual I'm told) so I picked up some saddleback clowns today that took to it within literally 30 seconds. It turns our a couple of my larger ocellaris are very annoyed at the saddlebacks presence (also not unusual I'm told). One ocellaris was attacking the saddleback and got snagged by my hadonni, fought to escape unsuccessfully and was eaten.

I am surprised to see a clown get eaten by any anemone even if it's one that it is not hosting with. Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[AquaReeferMan]

My haddoni killed 3 Ocellaris clowns but my saddlebacks were able to utilize it with no problems. Haddonis are very sticky and pack a mean sting. This means clowns not accustom to these larger and more powerful have to be extra careful and take time to build up a tolerance to them. My 3 Ocellaris clowns never showed any interest in the anemone. One day my power cut out and for some reason it spooked them. They tried to take shelter in the anemone. They all got stuck. I was only able to pull one of them out. Unfortunately it ended up dying shortly after.

 

[ssterling]

Thanks for the feedback. Have you had other complications with your haddoni and other tankmates? Since the day I put mine in it moved a few inches and has stayed in the same spot ever since. Snails have been the only thing to ever approach it until the saddlebacks.

 

[Toddrtrex]

Had the saddlebacks been hosted by it before it was chased into it? If not, I think that is the issue, the clown hadn't had a chance to acclimate it to the Haddoni.

I have two Haddonis, one for over 7 years, have only lost a watchman goby. One hosts a pair of Clarkiis and the other a pair of pink skunks ( different tanks.

 

[garygb]

Although haddoni is sometimes host to ocellaris in aquariums, it isn't a natural host like the saddleback clowns. BTW, my tank-bred ocellaris went right to my H. magnifica, even though it had almost certainly never seen an anemone. I would guess it had less to do with being tank bread and more to do with the species of anemone you had being the reason your ocellaris weren't interested in the haddoni. Also, when I bought a male ocellaris for the female a few years ago and put it in my RBTA tank for quarantine, it quickly took to the RBTA. So perhaps they are more accepting of some unnatural hosts than others.