Clowns and quantity

Rimbo76

Non-member
New to the hobby. Was told by LFS if I want clowns I either need to do either 2 or 20 really nothing in between due to aggression. Thoughts on this? Thanks!
 
Lol, one is fine, two is good. 20 is a joke.


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Stick with two, then add other types of fish


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Were they seriously wanted to sell you 20 clownfish?


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That is hilarious


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New to the hobby. Was told by LFS if I want clowns I either need to do either 2 or 20 really nothing in between due to aggression. Thoughts on this? Thanks!

If the tank is big with plenty of rock, I am pretty sure you can have 2 pairs. The more experienced can confirm.
 
I'd suggest sticking with one pair and then getting other types of fish. They really do get aggressive as they get older. We have a 90 gallon tank with a pair of ocellaris clownfish that have been together for almost a year. We got them when they were small and now that they're older and bonded they're very aggressive towards other fish. Even with a bigger tank I'd think having two pairs of clownfish would likely result in one pair killing the other. Even if they do stake out different parts of the tank and avoid each other that means that the other fish in the tank will basically have nowhere to go without being harassed by clownfish. They really are a bunch of jerks as they get older.
 
I'd suggest sticking with one pair and then getting other types of fish. They really do get aggressive as they get older. We have a 90 gallon tank with a pair of ocellaris clownfish that have been together for almost a year. We got them when they were small and now that they're older and bonded they're very aggressive towards other fish. Even with a bigger tank I'd think having two pairs of clownfish would likely result in one pair killing the other. Even if they do stake out different parts of the tank and avoid each other that means that the other fish in the tank will basically have nowhere to go without being harassed by clownfish. They really are a bunch of jerks as they get older.

Thanks for the insight madduck, even with plenty of rockwork they would go all the way to the other side of the tank and harass the other clowns?
 
Thanks for the insight madduck, even with plenty of rockwork they would go all the way to the other side of the tank and harass the other clowns?

I'm not sure if they would or not. When we added new fish to our tank a couple weeks ago our clownfish went a little bit outside of their established territory to harass them. That lasted for about a week and now the clownfish have mostly calmed down and remain in their little area. They still chase away any fish that come into their area but so far nothing has come out of it and new fish mostly avoid that area now. Although we're pretty much done adding fish to the tank now because there just isn't enough space to add more with the clownfish being jerks about their area. So if you have two pairs of clownfish in your tank that would mean best case you'd have two fairly big areas that would be potential no go areas for the other fish. I think clownfish are more aggressive towards other clownfish too so they might swim farther out of their territory to harass the other pair of clownfish.
 
I have around 10 in a 180. They just stick to different parts of the tank. I threw in 20 at once which I got from Frank180 a while back and 10 remain. The ones that fought or were weak all escaped down my overflow before I installed a box. Now 1 set of 3 hang out together, two pairs, and the rest chose different parts of the tank. They rarely mess with each other... at first there was a bit of fighting until the weak were down my overflow. Then everything was ok with the aquarium. Have had them together for around 5-6 years now.
 
I have a 150 and have two pairs that stay on different ends of the tank. At the beginning they would bother each other but after a while they just stay in their area.
 
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