Ok, so it worked !
Very long story short It Worked, the clown is hosting!
Now the long story.
The clown fish is a False Percula Ocelaris, I’ve had it for 7+ years now; wild, got it from J&L when it was a tiny baby. Had it in small 8 Gal first and then moved to a 65 Gal as it grew. The fish never hosted any anemones that were in the tank. It did host the red Gonioporah for a very long time keeping the coral closed where it was touched. So 7(!) years later (present time) I decided to try and make him host and got an orange tip BTA. Clown didn’t even look at the BTA, continued to host the Softy.
Here is what I tried:
1- 6 different pictures of the False Percula Clowns hosting each was left on the glass for a few days did nothing. The first picture did get his attention and scared him away from the Gonioporah but just few inches back from the picture not even close to the anemone.
2- Fake clown fish toy “Nemo” very realistic was placed beside the anemone “as if” it was hosting, the real fish did not even looked. Then I placed the toy by his home (Gonioporah) that scared him away for a half a day, and clown was back to the sof coral after that.
3- I did not try a mirror.
4- Then I tried chasing in the dark (someone on here told about when he was breeding the clowns) with anemone being the only light spot in the tank. The idea is to chase the clown in the dark “in to anemone”, hard to do due to SPS branches and live rock.
5- Relocated red gonioporah that clown is hosting close to the anemone. What do you think clown did? It was hosting an empty spot! Had to get Gonioporah back because anemone almost killed it.
6- “Manual Hosting”. This somewhat worked. Clown was caught during the night, with flash light and net. Then placed back in 8Gal for 2 days. Then I got inverted 2L pop bottle cut to the size to fit under SPS colony that anemone is settled under. Put some black electric tape on the top portion (where I will be holding my hand, so clown would not get scared of the hand). Cut the side of the top of the inverted 2L pop bottle just enough to release the fish from my hand in to the pop bottle. Acclimatised clown fish back to 65 Gal tank water. Cover the anemone with the bottle so that all of the anemone is inside. Release the clown in to the pop bottle and kept my hand on top. So now the clown has nowhere to go except in to the anemone. It took less then 5 min for the clown to escape but he did get zapped by the tentacles before he did.
This was good in a sense that clown was now swimming to and from the anemone and looking at it but never touched the anemone. After 3 days clown stopped swimming to the anemone and was back to Gonioporah hosting. After that I could not get him even at night because he would some how sense me and would swim away before I can get the net in to the tank.
7- Got another fish, very small locally raised false percula baby clown fish. Acclimatized him in the tank water and using above described method of “manual hosting” kept him under the inverted pop bottle for at least 30 min, where he got touched by the tentacles many times and then he was even diving all the way to the anemones mouth. Other fish were checking him out including the “old” clown, and that is when small guy got out because he wanted to check out the bigger clown (old clown looked like a parent?). At any rate, the small new clown was hosting the same day. Oddly enough the was no fight .perhaps the size difference was so large that the old fish did not see small one as a competitor. Even though the small clown is now hosting the old one was not. But old fish was definitely interested in the new fish, while new fish would hide in the anemone every time some other fish swam by (French Angel & or Hippo Tang). This was going on for about 4-6 days, old clown was still in the Gonioporah new one hosting BTA. One day I look and see the old clown is hosting !!! together with new one! Funny thing is that he would host together during the day and go back to sleep back to Gonioporah for the night.
I am happy now because 1: my old clown is hosting and 2: i have discovered a new method of "manual hosting" when introducing new clown fish to the tank. Maybe its not new for someone else but it is for me and good thing is that it worked!
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