Please help with new anemone and BTA dilema.

[ken6217]

Can someone offer some advise to me. I know this is hit and miss though. I bought a RBTA today and two maroon clowns. They were not pairs but I got a large one and small one. They were both in the same tank at the store and in different anemones. The anemone that I got is not real big. Anyway, when I got home and put all in the tank, the two fish hung out together until they found the anemone. The larger one won’t let the smaller one in. The smaller one is now staying away, and from time to time, the larger one is venturing out and trying to chase him.

I would like to have a pair ideally, but if it doesn’t work, I would like to get another BTA and another maroon. Here are my thoughts:

1. Get another BTA for the smaller one., but is it possible that the larger one will try to take over both anemones? I have a 90 gallon tank and could separate them.
2. Get rid of the smaller fish and get a larger maroon with its anemone.
3. Get rid of the larger maroon and get another small or larger maroon and see if they will go in the one anemone. Would two small ones work? The smaller one is about 1” maximum.

Any help or new idea would be appreciated. By the way, any way that it will ever work with the two fish I have now?

Thanks,
Ken

 

[Beverly]

Keep the clowns and BTA. Over time, the clowns will sort out who's boss, though it may take awhile and it may not always be pretty. Once they've established who's who, they will settle down.

We bought our tomato clowns and RBTA at the same time. Here's a video them about a month after we got both clowns and RBTA at the same time. They were very scrappy at one point, shown in the video. They eventually decided which was the female, the dominant fish, and which was the male....

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/v-rbta-tomatos-jan-21-06.wmv
January 21, 2006
(320 x 240 pixels, 24.9 MB, 5:22 minutes)

 

[TOURKID]

yes. dont pull out either maroon. the big one will atack the lil one for a day or two. ideally you want the baby to shimmy and twitch and that means its showing submission.

alot of females dont let the male in.

 

[ken6217]

The little one did shimmy up to the bigger one at first and the bigger one did not mind. It was after the bigger one discovered the BTA that things changed. The larger one is in it all the time and the small one is all by himself at the other end of the tank. You think that they will even get close enough together for them to even "bond"? What do you think about me getting a second BTA? The one I got is quite small, maybe 3" maximum. I really would like a larger one.

Thanks,
Ken

 

[ken6217]

Bump.
Also do you think that eventually the larger one will except the smaller one? The larger one is maybe 2x larger than the smaller one or maybe a little bigger than that.

Thanks,
Ken