research mistake

I think I made a huge mistake. After lots of researching about blue carpet anemones, I decided to go against getting one because of its aggressive nature and hard to keep reasons. After telling them they asked what I would want to replace in the order seeing as I have already payed for them. I told them I would have to think about it but I am positive it will have to do something with nems. I then decided to go with a rose bubble tip anemone due to the fact they are one of the easiest to keep, look great, and host a wide variety of clowns. I had like $30 left over and heres where I made the mistake. I have tried lots of different anemones and none have worked so far as to be a host for my clowns even a rose nem. I looked online to see if it were possible to host more clowns than 2 per tank and found a few articles saying yes if the tanks big enough, and I have a 120 gallon so I thought ok, I will buy a B&W OCC Clown and acclimate the two and do the strainer trick to get him acclimated to water and nem making it more likely to host with the clown. After putting in my order I did even more research and found that lots of people say that a 3rd will cause the clowns to fight and kill one another! I am kind of giving my self false hope that my tank might be big enough if the B&W clown hides in the nem, or they will just get along.

I am basically asking

1. How bad did I mess up

2. Will the clowns kill each other

 

what type of clowns do you already have? I've seen tanks with ocellaris and percs and they will tolerate more than one pair, so you may get lucky enough for that to happen... other types of clowns like saddlebacks or maroons can be a pain, though.

 

You have to remember that what people say online is there experience. They don't tell you how big their tank is or what types of clowns they had. I had 2 tank raised b& w occellaris and 2 wild caught b & W clowns and they lived in harmony. but every fish has his or her own personality. if you acclimate them together they should be OK.

 

Im with Will and Reef Bruh on this

if you have a large enough plastic mess strainer
or one of those fish acclimitisation boxes
you can assess your existing fishes reaction to the new introduction before releasing the fish into the tank

a 120 is a large tank and if you can get it to host the nem in isolation that would be ideal IMO

you might find there will be some initial showing off and bumping, but hopefully in that sized set up, harmony will be restored quickly

if the new clown is already hosting a nem, that at least gives it a chance to protect itself whilst the others are getting a chance to adapt to its presence


Steve

 

my other 2 occ are already in the tank, They havent started producing eggs yet, and one is only slightly larger than the other. I just purchased the bnw occ clown and I think it is to late to change my order. I kind of thought that maybe since there different in color they might be ok but now I think I am just kidding myself.

 

they may not kill him if they are occelaris(although sometimes they do), but they probably won't let him in the anemone with them.

 

The reason I was stupid in the first place is because I thought oh well, I am buying a nem I know they wont have an interest in, I should buy a new clown and I really like the B&W clown so thats the one I picked because I could do the mesh strainer technique and try and get him to host it that way he might be safe from the other fish as well as give me a dang host for clowns >.<

 

dumbderk

dont panic

re read all the previous posts

we all think you have a good chance in that tank with that combo

if you can isolate in the main tank the new clown and new nem and the new clown hosts the nem (Ive seen this using very large plastic colanders - food strainers)

then when you add the nem, clown combo to the main tank, do it in an area away from present clowns territory

Steve

moved to tropical fish section

 

I may be reading this wrong but you only got one bw occ clown correct? Not a pair?

 

i know clowns aren't territorial like some other fish, but FWIW I've had experience in two different tanks where I've rearranged the live rock and it sort of reset all territories. I've had fish that were chasing each other who now swim side by side a mere two days after moving half of my rocks around.

the point is there are many ways to change the fish's behavior by doing trivial things.