will a wc clown host better or will a tank raised one will?

[55semireef]

Me No Nemo, I agree with you hundred percent. Its just like how a baby lion has the instinct to kill. If they see something they can catch and kill, at first they don't know what to do. The instincts are there but they have no previous experiences on making a kill. I believe the same principle applies with TB and WC clownfish. WC clowns have the past experience of hosting anemones to while TB clowns don't(unless they were in a tank with anemones when they were reared). Regardless, TB clowns still have that drive to host anemones whether it takes them 2 months, 2 days or 2 seconds. You can't change or supress instincts.

 

[Me No Nemo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9621142#post9621142 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by teog
Me No Nemo- Nice pics of the snow flakes. The desjardin in my pic was bought from your store a few months ago. Your employees were calling her cindy jr.lol anyway she is doing great!

Thanks, I love snowflakes!
Glad Cindy Jr. is doing great! Aren't they great fish! I think they have more personality than the other tangs. Marcye

 

[skinnyjoe1976]

good call marcye. my question is don't most fish try to find some where to hide when they feel treaten? damsel hide in staghorn at night correct. so why would it not be the same for clowns wc or not to host for protection? and maybe if we wait a 1,000 years from now maybe we'll see who is right.

 

[osiris4evr]

Ive seen 3 captive breed crowns all hosting a feather duster! I'm pretty sure it doesnt matter if the are CB or WC they just do it!

 

[cschweitzer]

My only question that discounts many of the statements above is this:
Why can you not release a captive raised animal into the wild with great success(very few animals that are ever taken into captivity can be released, and only then with significant training). I think everyone is getting trained behaviors confused with instinct. Anything can be trained, rewarded, and taught to do things. As a human, are we not trained from birth to act a certain way, do certain things, etc?

Trained behaviors is not only trained by humans but by the parents, others of its type, or by predators. Trained is something you would not naturally do without prompting, in my idea of trained in this statement.

Is a feather duster an anemone? No. Noone listens to what I said. This is not so much a discussion of hosting, because hosting in a clownfish means a symbiotic relationship with an anemone. There is no sybiotic relationship with a featherduster, with a pump, a ph, etc. I could have sworn I explained this previously. It is not natural for a clown to host a duster, hence proving my point even further. It is not instinctual to host an anem, but it is to "host", or show hosting behavior with something...if it happens to be an anem, then so be it.

 

[chrisstie]

Not to hijack this, but I could have sworm when reading that without glasses or caffeiene, Craig, you said you wanted to host in a clownfish. I'd believe it too haha

But what you're saying kind of goes back a little bit to what I had suggested earlier- in clownfish its perhaps part nature and part nurture.

Clownfish, in the wild, typically cannot survive from hatching to adulthood without an anemone. They will get eaten or what not if they cant find an anemone to find home. That is such a simple truth that generally leads to some fundamental form of instinct "i must do this or else"...

When you have a domesticated creature - which i guess you could call tankbred as such - you have removed the threats of the wild, but the instinct remains. So while not feeling threatened clowns still probably feel they need to belong somewhere and will take what they can get. Why it takes so long for some to host in anything or why they may never do it at all is a bit of a mystery to me but in the way Craig used one of his clowns to sort of show his others that "Hi, this is an anemone, you go in it"

leads me to believe that the nurture part is something wild clowns get from all other wild clowns.. in a breeding tank with no anemone, well, that part of it is lost so its like they dont quite know what to do - they want to go somewhere comfortable and safe feeling but if they haven't seen an anemone before .. how would they know except to dash away to the fastest place to hide which could be your anemone when you put them in the tank

who knows, im back to babbling. im bored and need people to talk to for crying out loud its way more fun than engineering classes

 

[cschweitzer]

Besides, the word "instinct" is just a word some human came up with to describe an unexplainable phenomenon of animal nature. I think that instincts are highly overrated. Just because it is a natural ability, a natural action, a natural defense, does this make it instinct or is this a trained response due to outlying factors? Is it instinct that keeps most fish from eating cleaner gobies or is it a specific color pattern that reminds fish that the goby is a helpful part of the environment. It is unexplainable as to exactly why most fish won't eat them, so I guess we could just chalk it up to instinct. I personally feel there is a lot more to it, but since we cannot explain it, we choose to label it as an unexplainable entity or force. I think that a reaction to a threat is not necissarily a common reaction, but a trained response to an outside factors. Learning something on your own, I believe is also a trained response. You touch the surface of a stove and realize not to do it again, it is not instinct, but rather a knowledge of what can and/or will occur as an outcome to a specific predetermined action. Guess that's just the CS major in me. AI is just that, it is a recreation of intelligent life. Intelligent life learns from previous experiences, trains itsself to deduce logical outcomes and builds a structure and guidline for living through these past experiences.

However, thinking about this from another viewpoint and one of the best counterpoints for your side(I'm actually surprised that noone brought this up) is survivability in the wild. It would still disprove instinct, but it could definitely help your side of the issue. The fact that over 99% of wild clownfish will not make it to adulthood. This could prove that clowns in the wild and clowns that are TB have statistically the same proportion of clowns that go into anems, but it would also prove that it is not necessarily instinct, but dumb luck that a WC clown makes it into an anem. Maybe it is true that WC clowns will even have less success with anem pairing in the wild because many just float around until they're eaten. Some, very few, by chance, by tides and current, or like previously mentioned by sheer coincidence, they flop into an anem and realize that it means safety for them when no predators chase them while in it.

If this were true, it would mean that no clown necissarily seeks out an anem and is dedicated on finding it, but instead it would be a good spot for resting. However, it would prove that it is as likely to have a WC host as it is a TB. If you buy into this debate, though, you would have to conceed that in a tank, it would be more likely that WC would host by the sheer percentages of babies that may not host in comparison to in the wild having same percentages per clutch that will host, but the ones that won't or don't will be killed off early in life.

 

[cschweitzer]

Chrisstie, I love the way that you put everything so well-defined. I kind of go off on rants and tangents and sometimes lose what I was trying to explain...you make everything so simplified and laid out for everyone to understand, whereas I understand exactly what I'm trying to explain, but noone else can.

 

[Me No Nemo]

I think instinct in animals is very strong. Take my golden retriever. He's never been trained to retrieve. Neither were his parents. Yet, anyone with a retriever will tell you that they are driven by the need to retrieve. Throw a tennis ball and they will return it over and over. Many breeds won't. They never need to be taught to retrieve and in fact, it's extremely hard to break them of the instinct to retrieve. I have to believe that survival for most animals is based on their instincts. Many animals are not raised by their parents. Sea turtles, for example, hatch and instinctively follow light to end up in the ocean....thus the laws in many seaside towns that do not permit strong lighting near the shoreline since the baby turtles will go towards that rather than towards the water. If not instinctual, than how can that be explained? What about salmon?

"Instinct
What exactly is an instinct? If some behaviors are physical manifestations of instincts, understanding what an instinct is and how they evolved is a good first step to understanding the behavior of animals. An instinct is a behavior that animals exhibit independent of the wide range of learning and experiences of different individuals. Some times referred to as “hard-wiring”, instinct is the result of brain physiology. This is supported by Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt who wrote in his book Ethology- the Biology of Behavior that “Innate behavior patterns may already be fully functional at the time of hatching or birth”. Often developed during critical periods, instinctual behaviors have evolved over evolutionary time to ensure the survival and reproduction of that species. Other behaviors evolve or are learned and perfected over an individual’s life time. The goal is the same, to survive and to reproduce.


Instinctive behaviors have been studied for some time. One such study examined the instinctive behaviors of newborn primates. In the early 1960’s a study was done with a baby Rhesus monkey abandoned by its mother shortly after birth. Researchers placed the baby in a room with two “mothers”. One of the surrogate mothers was made of wire and had no distinguishing features of a mother except that it had a bottle attached to it containing milk. The second wire mother had a soft blanket and a “face” on it. In a 24-hour span of time, the baby stayed on the soft mother the overwhelming majority of the time even though it had nothing to offer in the way of food. Instinctually, the baby monkey was drawn to the surrogate that could provide the warmth of what it thought was a mother.


Birds offer another example of instinctual behavior. The well known animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz has been studying animals of all types including the Graylag Goose. Instinctively, the Graylag Goose and birds in general, know that upon hatching, they are looking for their mother. She is a being that is larger than they are within certain parameters and that she provides food. This is where the instinct stops and the learning begins. They learn that the first being they are in contact with who meets these criteria must be the mother. Imprinting occurs at this point. By moving slowly and crouching close to the ground Konrad Lorenz imprinted the geese on himself by being the first slow moving creature larger than themselves that they encountered. While the imprinting is a phenomenon that is most often seen in the world of birds and not to the companion animals that students of this class will be working with it is associated with instinctive behaviors of reproduction and nurturing.


The instinct part of that scenario seems to end at the “knowing” that the first relatively large being is the mother. The learned part seems to come when the newly hatched chick identifies or learns the exact shape and features of the object it will act towards as a parent. “Imprinting occurs at a critical period in development”. (Goldsmith and Zimmerman) It is important to note that the critical period for all behaviors is not always at birth. Critical development periods occur in most animals and are often rather short periods of time."
From text by
Kimberly J. Workinger
The Sound School Regional Vocational Aquaculture Center
New Haven

I think the example with the geese can be applied to the clowns. They are programmed to find safety and the first thing they come upon that affords that becomes their host.

 

[taketz]

Basically, alot of what everyone is arguing on this thread is pretty much null a void unless certain Breeders specifically single out Perculas to breed that do/do not instinctively host in Anemones. Thats what changed wolves into dogs and virtually every other domesticated animal into what it is today. Selective breeding with the hopes of singling out certain characteristics. ex; human compatability, size, color, ect.

If that is not present, then WC and TB Percs should theoritically search out anemones at about the same percentage.

Now, this brings up another point; Why don't Perc breeders attempt to selectively breed pairs which will host in anemones. A few years work into that will be equivilent to a few million years of evolution...

~

 

[Me No Nemo]

Well, ORA, for instance, breeds from WC pairs. The 25 year old pair I have from them bred for 23 years, never having been in an anemone all that time, yet when placed with an anemone went to it almost immediately. Their picassos parents are WC, so they should have the basic instinct to be drawn into an anemone. I guess one question is how many generations does it take for a TB clownfish to lose it's instinctual habits? My Maroon clowns (home) are second generation and went immediately (within days) into a carpet anemone. Perhaps the best answer is to breed TB from WC to keep the wild tendencies pure.

 

[cschweitzer]

My picassos took over 9 months to stop hosting an overflow box and go into the anem...and this was only through training them.

They were from the original WC ORA picasso pair. Don't think it has anything to do with 1st or 2nd gen...more to do with the percent of larvae going through MMP in TB in comparison to WC and the fact that the ones that are WC obviously had that push into the anem at a very very young age(through security from predation). Chances are very high that you will never get a WC clown that did not spend most of its entire life in an anem, because it would have been food for something else...

 

[teog]

Me No Nemo _ I love your analogy on the salmon and geese. It comes right from the dictionary.
in·stinct-
1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals.

2. A powerful motivation or impulse.

3. An innate capability or aptitude: an instinct for tact and diplomacy

Just because we are talking about a TB clownfish, we have not domesticated it. We have breed a species within our living rooms. It doesnt play fetch, get the paper, lay in our laps, swim circles when it hears the door bell ring, jump over a tight rope for a snack, etc.(the highlite is "oooh my puffer spits water," or "ooohhh my fish lets me pet it when Im about to feed."

do·mes·ti·cate
1. to convert (animals, plants, etc.) to domestic uses; tame.

2. to tame (an animal), esp. by generations of breeding, to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency so that the animal loses its ability to live in the wild.

This deffinition does not describe out fish.


You can not compare mammals to fish. Yes many captive raised animals that are domesticated could not live back in the wild. However many species can, IE snakes(I dont consider snakes to be domesticated either). Look at the issue south florida is having with boas, and pythons. These are even with captive raised snakes.

How about fish? it is against the law to release non-florida species of fish back in the waters(its against the law for all non-florida species). WHY? Because they do adapt and damage our eco systems. For example I have see lion fish and yellow tangs diving in FT lauderdale. These fish were never trained to be reintroduced into florida waters. Some smuck took a drive to the beach and let them go.

I think everyone is getting trained behaviors confused with instinct.

No I dont think so. Just because the majority of people disagree with you doesnt make them confused.

 

[teog]

I hit submit to soon. lol

You also have the quaker parrot. Which is illegal to own in many states due to a few pets escaping and over several years they're thousand of them living and destroying local crops. You can see wild quakers in Tampa, Orlando and South Florida. Which again are not naitive to North America.

There has been many sightings of other types of parrots living in south Florida and even nesting. Parrots from all sorts of conures to cockatoos. Which were all pets at one time. Is this to say all escaped birds live, no not at all. However many have.

So these few examples of birds, fish and snakes prove that animals that were once "pets" do not have to be trained to re-live in the wild. They can hunt and find food on their own. INSTINCT.:rollface:

 

[cschweitzer]

in·stinct-
1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals.

So the environment of a fish tank or the environment of tank breeding leads these clowns suceptable to all of the same problems as in the wild? Or are you saying that in the wild the clownfishes conditions are the same as in the tank?

If you believe this to be true, then the instincts of WC and TB clownfish are not at all the same. Thus, your point of TB clownfish going right into an anem due to instincts just became null and void.

 

[chrisstie]

Just to clarify I wasn't calling the fish in our tanks domesticated.. just sort of equating tank bred to being near that sort of status compared to living out in the wild since, you know, tank breds haven't been in the wild.. if that makes sense?

This conversation is getitng so deep and into symantics i can't even keep track of it anymore ;p

 

[taketz]

Cschweitzer has a point, but I don't think its been clearly made or explained yet. The fact is, many breeders of TB clownfish do not worry whether or not the clowns they are breeding host in Anenome's. This tends to lead toward a pattern of selective breeding where the instinct of hosting an anenome might become less important than other aspects.

Furthermore, I would imagine in the wild, the instinct to host in an Anenome to be of great survival importance. Meaning, those clownfish which reached a size where they would likely be caught would more than likely have that instinct, given that they lived long enough to be said size. Again, this is just speculation, but I would imagine it to be true.

Now, like I said before, breeders could make this less of an issue by only breeding pairs with a strong instinct to host, therefore making it a desirable trait for TB clownfish.

~

 

[Me No Nemo]

Doing some reading and found these facts...although off the current subject, I've seen people question both issues addressed below. Not sure the source of this, it's from a website addressed as:nhu.ku.ecu so I'm assuming some type of biology text. Still interesting facts to ponder:

"In another instance of anemone affecting fish, the normally orange-coloured portions of the fish darken, so that the fish is black, rather than orange, with white stripes. This type of melanism differs from that associated with size and certain isolated geographical populations (see Chapter 2). Only certain species of fish react this way, and only in certain species of actinians -- for example, A. chrysopterus in S. mertensii, and A. polymnus in H. crispa. Such changes may be relatively rapid, so that an orange fish transferred to another anemone will darken within a matter of hours. Lightening, once removed from that host, generally occurs more slowly. The adaptive value of this reaction to either partner is unknown.

The fish can also affect its anemone. In the presence of a resident fish, tentacles of E. quadricolor bulge near the end, but in the absence of a fish, the tentacles commonly lack bulbs. Specimens of this anemone are often identified as different species based solely on tentacle form. But in all other respects they are indistinguishable. The transformation of an anemone from a member of the non-bulbous "species" into a member of the other putative species can be effected by placing an anemonefish among its tentacles, which develop bulbs within minutes. The reverse occurs when a fish is removed, although more slowly. The bulb exposes a larger surface area of the tentacle to sunlight, so that the algae may be able to gather more solar energy, but why that should happen only in the presence of fish, and how it occurs, are enigmas."

 

[teog]

Me No Nemo-great read. I found it very interesting

chrisstie-Thanks for the clarification. Others have mentioned the word domesticated or even tame. I also agree about the symantics

taketz-I found what you said intriguing about breeding the instinc out of the clown to host. IE breeding multiple generations of TB clowns. I dont know if I buy it, but only time will tell.

cschweitzer-Take you pick on dictionary.com. Doesnt mean Im "null and void" , just means theres tons of deffinitions out there. I selected that deffinition since it went with some ones statement. Here is the first deffinition for you.
1. inborn pattern of activity or tendency to action common to a given biological species.

BUT back to the original topic....Does a TB host any less than a WC clown? Survey says....NO.

There is no facts to show this. So if you have legitament articles on the topic from true experts or marine biologists, send me the links. I would be excited to read them, as would many here.

 

[cschweitzer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9632806#post9632806 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Me No Nemo
The fish can also affect its anemone. In the presence of a resident fish, tentacles of E. quadricolor bulge near the end, but in the absence of a fish, the tentacles commonly lack bulbs. Specimens of this anemone are often identified as different species based solely on tentacle form. But in all other respects they are indistinguishable. The transformation of an anemone from a member of the non-bulbous "species" into a member of the other putative species can be effected by placing an anemonefish among its tentacles, which develop bulbs within minutes. The reverse occurs when a fish is removed, although more slowly. The bulb exposes a larger surface area of the tentacle to sunlight, so that the algae may be able to gather more solar energy, but why that should happen only in the presence of fish, and how it occurs, are enigmas."

The problem with this is that it is not true. I have clowns host in a non-bulb BTA and I have a BTA with bulbs that is not hosted...it is agreed that there is not just one reason that a BTA "bulbs".

Also, hypermelanization(the previous part of the quote) is also not directly related to a species of anemone.