Clowns and anemones

now i am new to the whole thing but. i have a pair of breeding percula clowns and i just bought a yellow african purple tip, and a white african purple tip anemone. the clowns wont go in them and the yellow one dosent seem to be doing really good. they were both staying in the front of my tank so i could see them and then they went to the back side. i kept moving them back to the front so i could see them and then i stopped doing that since the yellow one didnt look so good. im going to try and leave them alone and see what happens. any info on any of this would be helpful. thanks

 

How old is your tank? What size is it? What kind of lights do you have? Params?

 

it is a 75 gal tank. its only about a week old with the live rock that i got from another up and running tank. i am running a retro icecap 660 with 2- t5 10k and two t-5 460 atitinics

 

Whats the wattage of the lights? Your tank is not nearly old enough for anemone's, it needs to be established for at least 6 months to a year to be thinking of adding them. Also, there is no guarantee that clowns will ever host an anemone. Keep a close eye on the one that isn't doing so well; if it dies it will kill everything in the tank along with it.

 

my lights are putting out 85w per light due to the icecap.

 

do i have to wait even though the live rock was in a tank for about 3-5 years and very astablished.

 

Yes. Using cured rock doesnt automatically mean that your tank has cycled. What about your substrate? Was that from an older tank? Or the water?

 

the sand was but the water wasent.

 

1) A week isn't long enough, despite the age of the rock. You can add some "bio-bag" bacteria from the LFS that might help
2) Yellow- check the foot, if that's yellow too, it's been artificially dyed. White: probably shouldn't be snow-white, since that usually means bleaching due to stress. Hand feeding might help, but leaving alone is probably better.
3) Clowns don't automatically host in anemones, esp. if they are tank raised clowns. They may take to them eventually, or not ever. It took mine 9+ months to host. there is also anecdotal evidence that clowns will abandon an anemone if it seems stressed-- not too sure about that, but wither way, give it time.

Best idea honestly, take the anemones back to the store. test your water weekly. After two months, do some research on what kind of anemone you want and what your clowns natively like, then go get one (maybe two if they are the same species)

 

it is a pale yellow on the foot. i tested my water and everything is picture perfect nothing close to out of range. it seems to be doing better since it moved to the back of the tank. so did the white one. if either one gets worse i will take them back. what could i hand feed them. thanks so much this has help alot.