Need some advice on bubble tips and maroons

[TOURKID]

Hi everyone *waves* Im new to this forum and I'm enjoying it!
Hoping some more expierienced aquarist can give me some advice.

3 Weeks ago I bought 2 Maroon clowns from my LFS. They were in the same tank together for about 2 weeks in the store.
I took them home and as soon as they were realesed in my 55 gal. tank, there every so slightly bigger one started bullying the other to no end. I have no other fish in the tank and after a few days of the nipping and fin shredding I put the mean fish in a strainer in the tank for a week and let the little one heal. I rearranged a bit and let mean fish back out. dident work. so I returned little fish to the store kept mean fish (solo in her tank) and traded out for a bubble tip anemone.

Ok heres where my questions start! A mere 30 seconds after I had the BTA in the tank (whitch conveniently came attached to a small rock) the maroon went CRAZY. Pure love at first sight. She wiggled in the anemone non stop. lights out a few hours later. maroon is still going at it... VERY vigoresly. No biting at ALL. so in love it wouldent even move to get food unless it was very close to the anemone and her.

So I went to bed everything looked great. When I woke up in the morning and lights went on, the maroon was still wiggling furiously, and the anemone and the fish had moved about 5 inches onto the liverock.

The anemone was VERY shrunk, its tenticles shunk and bright green, and its mouth was all saggy and open and looked very sick.
I couldent get the fish to stay away from it so i caught it (much harder now that it wants the anemone soo bad) and I put it in the strainer agian.

I left immediately after and came back in about two hours. The anemone looked OUTSTANDING, it moved a little higher and wedged itself in a perfect hole in a rock, great light cirrculation, and looks good there too. So I guess my question is.. was the clown killing the anemone? Or is this what a BTA looks like at night? Am I being cruel to my fish?
I turned the lights out tonight (2nd night for bta in tank) and it moved RIGHT away.
It actually moved to the back side of its rock and SUPER close to my power head whitch i thankfully caught and unplugged.
Its still moving around but looks great. Should I let the anemone get settled in before I let the fish out? Ive heard before that maroons can be so aggressive with them that they kill them. what are the chances?

Thanks for reading this Im a stress ball tonight!!!

~Tourkid~

 

[IslandCrow]

It may not be anything the clown is doing. Anemonies will periodically shrink up and expel all the water and wastes from their tentacles. It looks very much like they're dying when they do it, but in an hour or so, they're looking great again.

How big is your anemone and how big is your clown? I've heard a few rules of thumb on the what the size ratio should be between the two, but I can't remember any of them. I'd probably give the clown another chance, assuming the anemone is significantly bigger than she is. It's pretty normal for them to rub against the anemone and even nip at the tentacles from time to time. I have no doubt that mine does some damage to the anemone, but it's quick to heal, and I'm guessing (or hoping) the symbiotic relationship between the two is ultimately beneficial to them both.

 

[TOURKID]

You use a tek five with a 55 gal? 4 tubes or 8? I have one of these extra I bet Its a ton better than the odysea lights i have... they arent bad tho.

Any how, when the anemone is fully open it can be about 6 inches.. when it was all scary small, about 2 inches by 2 inches

the fish is tiny right now, about two inches counting the back fin.

I woke up this morning hoping it would look just as ugly as yesterday, but no, it looks great. moved all around lastnight then picked a spot 2 inches from its last spot. afraid to turn on the power head and leave.... I think Im going to keep the fish locked up till about 2 hours before lights off that way she'll have a few hours then maybe she will relax. If I have to catch this fish in the morning agian i might lose my mind. lol

 

[TOURKID]

update!

Around noon today the bta deflated for about an hour, went back to normal. I let my mean ol clown out of jail.
She swam past it a few times (the bta is on the back side of the aquarium today)
She swam thru it a few times... ate some shrimp i gave her, and then dove in.

Shes been hanging out in the bta for a few hours now but isent even half as aggressive as the first time, and she keeps giving it little breaks and then go's back to it. Im so hoping somthing will finally go right in this tank!!

Looks like a second chance is sometimes just what maroons may need (sometimes that is)

 

[IslandCrow]

Yeah, it seems like maroons just take to bubble tips extremely well. I got my first BTA too early and managed to kill it, but I felt so sorry for my clown who loved the thing (would have followed it out of the tank when I removed it if she could) I tried again about 4-5 months later (with much more success). Mine isn't nearly as rough with her anemone as she was at first. For the first month, she would seldom stray more than a few inches from it, and now she's finally leaving it to swim around the tank.

It sounds like the size ratio between your clown and BTA should be just fine. The deflation and re-inflation is very normal. Mine does it at least a few times a week I think.

I have the 4 bulb Tech 5, and I'm quite happy with it. I think 6 may have been a bit much, and there's no way the 8 bulb would have fit on my tank. I don't keep any SPS corals and my GBTA actually doesn't seem to be very interested in bright lighting. It actually prefers the bottom of my tank attached to a rock overhang and tends to move a little more under the rock when I have all four lights on in the middle of a day and then moves back out when I only have two going. The rest of my corals absolutely love the full light (even my mushrooms), but I don't have a chiller, so leaving all 4 bulbs burning throughout the day would heat the water too much.