Maroon Clown Hosting my anemone in 12 hours

[MrCote]

So last night I bought a baby maroon Clownfish in hopes that it would host my RBTA I got not too long ago from Frank180Reef. The anemone was looking good so I figured it was time for a clown to host it. I put the Maroone Clown in at 10pm yesterday and at about 10am this morning it started to host it. I did not have high hopes for it even hosting because its tank bred. It is probably about an inch maybe a little less in length and has good color. I snapped some pics of it with my phone so they arent that good. Someday ill invest in a good camera

 

[MrCote]

 

[badlands25]

Nice! My maroons went to my nem in about 10 mins! They even bring it food

 

[MrCote]

yea, I may buy another one to make a pair once this one in my tank becomes a female. But its so awesome to watch it swim in and out of the anemone. Definetly 2 great buys

and what kind of foods does it bring your anemone? I feed mysis but I dont think my clown will feed my anemone that

 

[kotu100]

if you cut a shrimp into small pieces sometimes the clown will grab the piece and bring it back to the nem.

 

[JohnK]

Looking good.

I prefer to feed just mysis (if anything) to my RBTAs. They will take larger foods, but larger foods usually end up being partially digested then spat out to rot unseen in the tank.

Also FWIW BTAs are natural hosts to maroons so it's quite normal for them to move right in. I don't know who made up that line about tank rasied clowns not taking to anemones, but I'd be willing to bet it started with people trying to get percs to host in BTAs (which IS hit or miss and takes time, wild caught or tank rasied).

 

[MrCote]

I almost bought a pair of false percs. But at the last minute i decided to try out a maroon clown. It was $40 for that little guy! I didnt think maroons were that expensive but im happy i bought it. And I fed my anemone mysis the day after I got it (probably not the smartest think i could have done) and then the next day the thing completely deflated and i thought it was gonna die but it popped back open even bigger. It did this twice in one day. And the mouth was open enough where I probably could have fit my thumb in the mouth

 

[Flame Angel]

Looking good. Nice to hear a positive outcome.

Great picture. Worth a 1,000 words.

 

[JohnK]

I remember the night I first brought my original RBTA home and added it to a tank with my single (later to be female) maroon clown.

For some reason the nem didn't attach it's foot at first, so it blew around the tank like a tumbleweed for a couple of hours. The clown went to it almost instantly, and for those few nerve rattling hours she chased the nem around the tank trying to nestle in it as it blew around in the current. I was very relieved to find the nem attached and the clown nestling calmly when I woke up the next day.

 

[myram]

My tank bred Maroon has nothing to do with my BTA..............bums me out.

I had the BTA first, let it get settled in and situated, then added the Maroon. But nothing has happened yet, and the reason I went with the Maroon was because it's the natural pair host in the wild.

Congrats on yours hosting.

Steve

 

[MrCote]

thanks... and I read that you can print a picture up online of a clownfish hosting a BTA and tape it to the tank on the outside of the glass obviously so the fish can see it from the inside and it sees the picture with a clown hosting the anemone so it kinda gets the idea that it can do that to your anemone. Its simple, and there are no down sides to it. So give it a shot. I was gonna do that with mine but it hosted the anemone before i got the chance to try that

 

[MrCote]

here is a better picture of the anemones color. The other two pictures kind of washed out its color a lot for some reason

 

[Briko03]

Congrats, I think clowns hosting is one of the coolest things to have in a tank.

 

[willray]

That last pic is awesome for a cell phone. I dont think you to invest in good camera,you got one!

 

[bearwithfish]

wow beautiful pix .. your little one there is just too cute!!

 

[inverted]

Great pics MrCote. Congrats on the nem/clown pairing. If you plan to add another, you may want to do so soon though before this one gets any bigger and make sure to get a small submissive clown, that has not ever been separated from other clowns. They can start to turn female if separated for even a very short time, from dominant females, and two female maroons always results in death. There is a section at the bottom of this article on maroon clowns; they are one of the tougher clowns to pair.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-10/hcs3/index.php

 

[gunnyreefer]

Congrats. It is very important that you get your second clown very soon. It took me 8 different fish to find a compatible mate for my yellow striped maroon clown. When I introduced my yellow stripe she was in her new within a hour or so of being in the tank. When I was in the process of finding a pair I tried several different methods from tank dividers to plastic holding tanks inside the DT with her but none of these worked so finially with the last fish I tried I just threw him in the he was roughly half her size. And after some tormenting they were a pair. I will say the coolest thing that I have seen in my tank to date is my yellow stripe taking a large piece of silverside from my snow flake eel who was 10-12" and she fed it to her nem. They are so much more enjoyable to watch as a pair. Sorry to go on but Maroon clowns and RBTA's are what got me into reefing.

 

[JohnK]

I had good luck with the opposite approach to pairing maroon clowns. That is, I got a single one and had it for a couple of yrs, then added a tiny undifferentiated baby (that came out of a tank with dozens of it's siblings).

I very carefully made an escape proof enclosure out of a 2 litre bottle so that I could put the baby in with the female and let them get used to seeing each other without letting the female touch/kill the baby. I super cautiously put the baby in the bottle, and then into the tank. In about 1.007 seconds the baby escaped and I was sure it would be torn to bits within minutes.... In fact they paired up almost instantly, apparently because it was so easy to establish dominance.

I'm in no way suggesting that it is generally easy to pair maroons, just that in my case having a baby and an established female several times bigger worked for me.

 

[MrCote]

yea That was the way I was gonna do it John. Ill let the one I have now turn into a female and when it gets to about 3" ill just buy another maroon clown thats just under an inch so that I know it will be a male. Then let them get used to seeing eachother and give it a try with fingers crossed.

Oh and thanks everyone for the compliments!

 

[JohnK]

Hey, I'm not necessarily reccomending that approach, just sharing that it worked for me. I might have gotten lucky.

FWIW in my case it was something like a 3" female paired with a .75" baby. If there had been any real aggression the baby would have been a gonner real fast, the female almost could have swallowed the little guy, it was comical to see them together until he grew a bit