ceastman Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 So I have a mated pair of clownfish but I have a lot of anemones now and I don't think that just two clownfish is enough to take of the 15+ anemones I have now. So the question is can I get another male (smaller) maroon clownfish to help maintain - feed these anemones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarmerTy Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 The anemones need no maintenance from a fish so it's entirely your desire to have another fish or not. I've never had maroons but my guess is the new fish will get beat up pretty bad depending on what your pair of clownfish are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted February 11, 2016 Author Share Posted February 11, 2016 I was going to get another maroon - i was reading that after the mated pair any other maroon clownfish would become a small male submissive. Was just curious if anyone here had any experience with more than 2 maroon clownfish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jestep Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Probably not a good idea in anything less than a 6ft tank, with any clownfish. Especially if the current maroons are paired up, they're not going to want to share the anemones... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted February 11, 2016 Share Posted February 11, 2016 Adding more clowns to a tank with maroons would be the worst decision. Maroons have a reputation as the most aggressive and territorial clown species. You could possibly get away with mixing more docile species like skunks with other skunks, percula, or ocellaris. Like Ty said though, anemones don't need clownfish to survive. They can survive just fine without clownfish, in the wild you'll see a few clownfish hosting a whole garden of anemones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted February 11, 2016 Author Share Posted February 11, 2016 The reason I have been contemplating adding more maroon clownfish is that some of my anemones are pale and I was reading that they were pale because they were not getting enough food, so I was postulating that I have too many anemones and the clownfish are not giving food scraps to all the anemones. So I have started target feeding the pale anemones and they seem to be starting to get their green color back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 First time i saw maroons it was a female with 3 males in a 29 gallon tank and they had been established for several years and were consistently breeding. But if you have an established pair it will be risky trying to add any more maroons. If you are patient with so many anemones you should be able to establish pairs or trios of different species but you will need to use clear dividers to keep the species separate until the older established ones recognize the territory of the new ones. Expect this process to take months and months and it would be irresponsible not to have homes ready if you run into problems. As far as feeding your anemones they do get a significant percentage of their nitrogen needs in the form of ammonia from their clownfish* but you will never be able to meet the needs of all your anemones even if they all had clowns. If you're going to keep all your anemones you'll need to experiment with target feeding to get color but expect them to start splitting more frequently. *http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10236240500057929 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timfish Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Is your alkalinity high? In the neighborhood of 14 or 15 dKH? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted February 12, 2016 Author Share Posted February 12, 2016 The target feeding does seem to be working, the pale ones are starting to get their color back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted February 12, 2016 Author Share Posted February 12, 2016 I believe it is close to 9dKh, still waiting for my hanna reagent replacements but other manual kits come in around 8.5kdKH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sascha D. Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Maroons are highly aggressive and have the weapons to cause some serious damage. I've met several people with scars from female maroons. However, clowns are known to be kept in aggregation if you start them all small. If you traded in your pair and added 4-6 small clowns then one would become female and the rest would stay small. In a 240g you might even find yourself with three pairs. I would probably advise against getting a bunch of maroons though. I think they're the most unpredictable of the clowns and you would be safer with oscellaris or pink skunks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gig 'em @ NDstructible Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 Maroons are highly aggressive and have the weapons to cause some serious damage. I've met several people with scars from female maroons. However, clowns are known to be kept in aggregation if you start them all small. If you traded in your pair and added 4-6 small clowns then one would become female and the rest would stay small. In a 240g you might even find yourself with three pairs. I would probably advise against getting a bunch of maroons though. I think they're the most unpredictable of the clowns and you would be safer with oscellaris or pink skunks. This is definitely possible, but if you buy all clowns at the exact same size you're risking some serious fighting and casualties. When they're all the same size they will all be gunning to become the dominant female and will start fighting among each other until finally one fish is victorious. I've seen some clowns get pretty torn up and killed from this process. The safest method would to buy a few small clowns, and then one large mature clown and introduce them all at the same time. This way there would be no question as to which clown will become the dominant female and the fighting should be fairly limited. The larger clown will occasionally charge the smaller clowns to insure that they are still submitting to her, but she won't tear them up. As for your bleaching anemones, there's a chance that no host clowns are the issue, but it's most likely not the cause. Bleaching anemones usually stems from lighting conditions, water quality, temperature or stress. I've seem very colorful and happy anemones that never got fed and were more or less neglected by clownfish. If spot feeding the anemones is starting to bring color back to them, then I would stick with that strategy and slowly feed them a little more over time. I find anemones really like thawed krill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceastman Posted February 17, 2016 Author Share Posted February 17, 2016 Maroons are highly aggressive and have the weapons to cause some serious damage. I've met several people with scars from female maroons. However, clowns are known to be kept in aggregation if you start them all small. If you traded in your pair and added 4-6 small clowns then one would become female and the rest would stay small. In a 240g you might even find yourself with three pairs. I would probably advise against getting a bunch of maroons though. I think they're the most unpredictable of the clowns and you would be safer with oscellaris or pink skunks. hmm that's an idea, trade in my pair of maroon for a 6 or so smaller oscellaris, I have my anemones on the right side of the tank and they have mostly stayed over there. so what do other people feed their anemones? and where do you get it from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LoganC Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 Maroons are the only clowns found in the wild that don't exhibit a harem behavior. You always only find pairs, it's not common behavior for the female of this species to allow but one male to join her... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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