Clown school

[digital-audiophile]

So after my loss yesterday of my 2 year old perc to a jumping accident :( I picked up a pair of false clowns to go into my tank. I love clowns and would be sad to have a tank without them. I'm actually thinking however of getting two more to make a small little family. Since they would all be the same size (very small - oceans has a tank full at a great price!) I would imagine that as they grew one would become female and one the dominant male and the other two would stay a bit on the outside as males in waiting.

It is a 90G so there is a decent amount of space, I do have a GBTA to host the clowns if they decide to pay attention to it.

I would love any advice from reefers that have kept multiple clowns and any pros or cons before I go ahead and add a few more.

Thanks in advance for your help :)

[adidas]

a school of clowns would be awesome...i have an empty 120g here...giving me some ideas

[digital-audiophile]

I have like the tank at Fuji Yama (Great Japanese restraunt donwtown) and they have a couple little shoals of Clowns in their tank - its huge like 280ish Gallons - and the clowns look pretty cool in their little pods.

I'm just not sure how well long term clown families work?

[adidas]

i've never done it, but i would think the best way would be to introduce them all to the tank at the same time? wonder if that matters

[fishoholic]

I would think they would need to be introduced at the same or very close to the same time for them to all get along. I don't known about clowns but it's that way for my tangs.

[michika]

I looked into this when I set up my 230g a couple of years ago. From all my research (80% textbooks, 20% internet [Canreef, ReefCentral, etc.] I figured that they all need to be added at or around the same time, and need to be in groups of more then 7-10 (depends on the source). There seemed to be a general concensus that adding 3 will trigger the death of one clown, as one of the three will differentiate into a female and choose one male as a mate. The female would then kill the non-mated male. Granted this was just stuff I've read, and I never did try it out.

However, I have kept 3 separate types of clown pairs in one tank, tomato, ocellaris, and panda. It was just a matter of introducting them at the same time, or rearranging the rockwork/environment upon introduction of a new pair.

[digital-audiophile]

So I ended up getting two more to make a little family of four. They are all tiny sized and seem to be swiming together. We will see as they grow what happens. If things get too aggresive I can more one or more into my sump.

[surgeonfish]

Keep us updated. I agree with Catherine, add them all around the same time. I tried a school of tank raised ocellaris clowns. However, I already had a pair of ocellaris clowns and breeding Tomoto clowns that did not like any additional clowns.

[Quagmire]

Don't forget clowns are damsels.Not speaking from experience,but I would think that after they paired off,you would get a lot of fighting.Eventually ending up with only the dominant pair surviving.Or maybe a couple pairs.Maybe some of the experienced clown owners will chime in,but in the mean time,go nuts with google,there should be lots of info on compatibility.

[digital-audiophile]

I'll keep you guys posted. Day number two and everything still seems to be ok. I did some movements on the rockwork last night to create a better seperation of the two sides of the tank. The nice part is my wife is on mat leave and spends a lot of time in the basement near the tank so she is able to monitor the behavior and can react quickly if any of the clowns seem to be in distress.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

You probably will end up with one dominant pair & they will be very territorial against the others, unless in a very large tank.

[bv_reefer]

-is it true that the leader of the anemone is usually the largest female
and that the smaller males follow?

[steva44]

I got two clowns in one anenome and one in another, they are seperated by a rock "wall" where they cant see each other and they never fight, barely even venture a foot from their anenomes

[digital-audiophile]

I know at least in the wild an anemone will have a mated pair living in an anemone and that there will be jeuvenile males in waiting that hang around waiting for thier chance to move in when one of the pair dies.

I'm somewhat surprised that there are not many reefers on here who have tried this?

[michika]

I've seen it done a bunch of times in aquariums. Although I can't be all that sure how successful it is as often these show tanks are maintained for looks, not necessarily for the health of the animals.