Clown Spawning Question

[kwizatz-haderah]

Do clowns need an anemone to spawn?
How old do clowns need to be to be considered at spawning age?
What is the best type of anemone for a pair of Percs?

TIA

 

[JohnK]

As far as I know an anemone is not needed to see spawning

Not sure on age, a couple to a few yrs at least IME. Good plump female, generally well fed helps a lot.

Percs naturally host in magnifica's and giant carpets - two of the harder to keep anemones. Percs often will take to bubble tip anemones - probably the easiest to keep and most readily available anemones.

 

[kwizatz-haderah]

What makes a bubble-tip easy to keep?

 

[JohnK]

BTA/RBTA's (bubble tips/rose bubble tips) have a very well proven track record in captivity. Many (most) other anemones have very well proven POOR track records in captivity.

IIRC reasons for BTA success include that;
-they are able to survive in moderate to very bright light whereas some of the other anemones (like the natural hosts to perc clowns) require extremely intense light.
-They can adapt to a variety of different levels of flow
-They tend to stay a managable size (largely because once they get big they tend to split
-Because they frequently split in captivity, it's not at all hard to find captive splits (which are already acclimated to captivity vs imported anemones straight out of the ocean)

In general there are countless success stories with BTA/RBTAs in captivity whereas no other anemone has such a good track record.

FWIW, I'm generalizing a whole lot here but hopefully some others might chime in with their thoughts.................

Here's a pic of a few of my RBTA's just to show an example of what often happens with them. I bought one in 2002, now I can't count them but I estimate that there 10-15 in my display