Clownfish won't let BTA eat anything!

I didn't know whether or not to post this in the inverts forum, but since its the clownfish causing the problems I thought this was more appropriate.

For the past few weeks my oss clown will not let my anemone eat (or should I say his anemone?). I have tried all sorts of food, different sizes of food, different times of the day and nothing seems to work at all. The clownfish just nibbles at the food and rips it out of the anemone's mouth. Its very frustrating. The only way I can get the anemone to eat is if I have my hand or net in the tank to block the clownfish from getting near the anemone while its eating. What should I do? I feel like its hurting the anemone. It gets the food halfway down and the clownfish rips it out.

Params are fine btw. I don't get it.

 

1. have you tried feeding at night while the clowns asleep?
2. what about multiple small pieces so the clown can have some and then a few for the bta.
3. if not I wouldnt worry, the bta feeds off of light and also the clowns waste

 

i would go along with the options dingo has suggested. mine still after 13months take the food away from their bta if i dont do the distraction method.. it does work.

firstly i turn of the pumps,place food (but not all of it)in for the fish at the opposite end of tank away from bta,then target feed the bta and sun coral i have! i then feed the fish with the second half of food ,just to prolong there time away from the anemone....!!!hope this helps, but as long as the bta get good light,dont worry too much!

 

Stop stressing over this......anemones rarely need to be fed. Here are a couple excerpts from articles (this just came up about feeding anemones).

Nutrition
Sea anemones that are host to clownfishes, like many tropical actinians and some temperate ones, harbour unicellular algae within the cells of their tentacles and oral disc. A portion of the sugars produced by these plants through photosynthesis are "leaked" to their host. This may be the anemone's major source of energy. The widely flared oral disc of many host actinians serves not only to accommodate fish, but its large surface area is well adapted for intercepting sunlight.
However, actinians, like all coelenterates, capture and digest animal prey with their nematocysts. We have found small fish, sea urchins, and a variety of crustaceans (shrimps and crabs) in the coelenteron of host anemones. They also appear to feed on planktonic items conveyed by the currents. Although the energy they derive from photosynthesis may be sufficient to live, the anemones need sulfur, nitrogen, and other elements in order to grow and reproduce. These animals are not voracious predators: their prey probably consists of animals that bump into them (e.g. a fish fleeing a more active predator) or stumble over them (e.g. a sea urchin, which has no eyes). Therefore, the supply is probably small and irregular. A more predictable source of these nutrients may be from wastes of their symbiotic fish. This issue deserves to be studied scientifically. Anemones of some species are capable of absorbing nutrients directly from seawater through their thin tissues, and that may be another source of nutrition for these animals as well.
Survival
These anemones do not need to be fed every other day! In fact most anemones benefit from from being fed much less then you may think. If kept under very bright illumination a healthy anemone does not need to be fed at all! They can get enough nutrition off the symbiotic algae that lives in its tissues and get all the nourishment they need from that. On the other hand an occasional feeding of larger meaty frozen marine food can help to keep the hobbyist(you) more at ease so a feeding once a week is okay. You can actually over feed an anemone and cause a short life span. The piece of food you feed should be no bigger than the mouth located in the center of the animal where there are no tentacles growing. Do not feed every other day! When an anemone eats it must also produce waste. This waste will be exported through the mouth and if it gets fed to often it can cause a toxic situation with in the anemone. It is common for an anemone to deflate shortly after feeding to expel any wastes that have built up and to replace the water(which becomes fouled) in its tissues. An anemone that is constantly deflated due to being over fed can not get the proper lighting to its tissues to keep its symbiotic algae growing and producing nutrients that it can not get from an oral feeding. With out this algae thriving in the tissues the anemone soon becomes weak and stays shriveled up longer and longer and may actually shrink in size. Eventually this will cause the death of your anemone.