anyone have ocellaris and BTA ?

[sahmad43]

I have a pair of juvenile ocellaris and bubble tip anemone in a 90 gallon and the ocellaris dont goto the BTA , I was wondering if anyone else has this combinition and what are their experience?
I also have a seabea anemone and that too is not attracting the ocellaris.

[dave00gt]

I have a pair of juvenile ocellaris and bubble tip anemone in a 90 gallon and the ocellaris dont goto the BTA , I was wondering if anyone else has this combinition and what are their experience?
I also have a seabea anemone and that too is not attracting the ocellaris.

theres really nothing you can do, just wait on his instinct to go to the anemone, how long have you had the clowns for?

[sahmad43]

i have had him only for a week now

[dave00gt]

i have had him only for a week now

are they pretty small, i got an older one, well a little older ones than the little small ones, well a kinda darker one , because that tells you kinda how old they are, lighter ones are young, darker ones are older.

mine only took 3 days, but i am sure is because he was older, just give them time , maybe one night he will go to the anemone , it will happen overnight

[sahmad43]

yeh they are pretty small .. juveniles

[Ninong]

I have a pair of juvenile ocellaris and bubble tip anemone in a 90 gallon and the ocellaris dont goto the BTA , I was wondering if anyone else has this combinition and what are their experience?
I also have a seabea anemone and that too is not attracting the ocellaris.

Neither of those anemones are natural hosts for Ocellaris clownfish but, in captivity, they usually accept the BTA as a host eventually.

If you're interested in pairing clownfish with clownfish-hosting sea anemones, it's a good idea to check in advance to see which anemones are acceptable to which clownfish.



P.S. -- And never listen to the guys at the LFS. They can't even tell you the correct names of their clownfish or their anemones much less tell you which will accept which. I have heard some of the most hilarious examples of misinformation from LFS employees on clownfish-anemone relationships as I have heard from them on any subject. And that's saying something.

[BubbaWPB]

I've got a pair of oscellaris clownfish that took to my BTA right away. However, I have a buddy with an oscellaris and a percula and neither has taken to his 3 BTA's... go figure.

[Ninong]

I've got a pair of oscellaris clownfish that took to my BTA right away. However, I have a buddy with an oscellaris and a percula and neither has taken to his 3 BTA's... go figure.

As far as BTA acceptability by Ocellaris and Percula clownfish is concerned, the great majority of Ocellaris clownfish will accept a BTA and the great majority of Percula clownfish will reject it. There are exceptions with both species but generally Ocellaris will accept and Percula will reject.

Another possible problem your friend could be having is that the Ocellaris clownfish in his tank may have adopted something else as a surrogate host that it prefers. This is a common situation. In fact, this can happen even if the new anemone is one that is a known natural host.

[BubbaWPB]

Another possible problem your friend could be having is that the Ocellaris clownfish in his tank may have adopted something else as a surrogate host that it prefers.

I think so, too... he has adopted an unswavering infatuation to the percula

[Ninong]

I think so, too... he has adopted an unswavering infatuation to the percula

There is a good chance that they have become a mated pair, in which case the Ocellaris will stick with the surrogate host that has been chosen by the female Percula. That assumes that you are correct in thinking that the Ocellaris is the male.

[sahmad43]

my BTA died unfortunately but I st ill have the seabae anemone .. do you think the ocellaris will take it as as host ?

[Ninong]

my BTA died unfortunately but I st ill have the seabae anemone .. do you think the ocellaris will take it as as host ?

The Sebae anemone (H. crispa) is not a natural host for A. ocellaris and it is usually rejected as a surrogate host in captivity.

[dreams]

i have read that if they are tank raised, they may have "forgetten" how to host

which brings me to another 2 questions....what is prefered by perculas & can you mix a tank raised w/ a wild perc?

[dreams]

oops...missed the answer to my first question:-)

[Ninong]

i have read that if they are tank raised, they may have "forgetten" how to host

I have read that, too, but I don't believe it's true. As far as I'm concerned, it's not true. There are a few different versions of how clownfish recognize the "right" host anemone. I tend to think that it is olfactory and that it is hardwired over thousands and thousands of generations.

which brings me to another 2 questions....what is prefered by perculas & can you mix a tank raised w/ a wild perc?

Heteractis magnifica and Stichodactyla gigantea are the two most common natural hosts for Amphiprion percula. I have seen pictures of it accepting other anemones as surrogates but those are the two best shots as far as what it might be most likely to adopt. There is a nice resource online but it's down right now, so I'm doing this from memory. I sold my copy of Joyce Wilkerson's Clownfishes.

You can mix captive-bred and wild-collected fish. (There are no true "tank-raised" clownfish that I am aware of.) Captive-bred means the parents spawned in captivity and the fish were raised from the eggs in captivity. Tank-raised means the parents spawned in the wild and the pelagic larvae were collected and then raised in captivity. No one bothers to do this with clownfish because they are too easy to breed in captivity.

The only difference between a wild-collected Percula and one that has been captive-bred is that the wild specimen may be more spastic in captivity -- more nervous, more antsy, whatever. That's because the wild is a scary place for clownfish. Also, if you buy a captive-bred clownfish, it will almost certainly be a juvenile less than 8 months old. If you purchased a wild-collected clownfish, you have no way of knowing it's age (unless you're an expert). And just because it's small doesn't tell you anything. Maybe it was living in a large anemone with a dominant pair and that's why it wasn't allowed to mature. It could be four or five years old and still be sexually immature.

P.S. -- Don't forget that there are always exceptions in captivity. Even though a particular clownfish may never go near a certain anemone in the wild, it may accept it in captivity. The difference being that it's natural host would be available in the wild and it would therefore have no interest in the other anemone. However, observations by a large number of hobbyists over the past ten or fifteen years are a fairly good indicator of the probability of a particular species of clownfish accepting a particular non-natural host species of anemone. For instance, the Maroon clownfish (Premnas biaculeatus) has only one natural host, Entacmaea quadricolor, but if will sometimes accept other anemones in captivity, even the Atlantic species Condylactis gigantea.

The one unnatural association that you can usually predict in captivity is Ocellaris accepting E. quadricolor and Percula rejecting it. That probably holds true at least 80% of the time.

[dreams]

thank you, ninong....very helpful post:-)