6 Line wrasse vs Condy Anemone

My tank has been set up for about 3/4 of a year now and I decided to take a chance and buy an anemone to see if my tank was well established enough (it was just 10$, so there wasn't a huge loss if my tank wasn't good enough), and it was! For the first couple of days it was puffy and happy, but then my 6 line wrasse started nipping at the tentacles, making it shrivel up. Will this behavior go away? I feed small portions every day because I thought it was a hunger thing, but it didn't help. I have a Lyre tail chromis 1.5", a Benz Damsel 1", a spotted gobie 3" paired with a pistol shrimp, a 6 line wrasse 2", a true percula clownfish 1.5", and a 2.5 inch spotted hawkfish. So all are fairly equivalent in size. What should I do to make the 6 line stop nipping at my anemone?

 

Probably not. Once a fish or crustacean starts attacking corals or other sessile inverts, it usually just gets worse.

Remove one of them. That will most likely be the only way.

IMHO, the Condy is one creature that's best left in the ocean. They get huge, they wander a lot, and those beautiful, long-reaching tentacles are tipped with deadly nematocysts, making them the perfect killing machine in any aquarium. They have been known to eat the fish, shrimp, and crabs that you intended to keep as well as killing corals and other inverts during their journeys.

 

Just to clarify things, condy's are actually really hardy! I put one in my tank at about 2months! Did very well but like Mr. Bill said, they get huge and like to wonder! I ended up returning him to the LFS, but it was a PITA to detach him safely.

 

Alright, thanks for the help! I'll bring my condy back this weekend. I still would really like to have an anemone though, what are your thoughts on a sebae? I found one at my Los that I like a lot. It looks like my skunk cleaner shrimp is pecking at it too, if I want an anemone, should I bring him back too?

 

Sebae nems are one of the most difficult to keep alive in captivity. BTAs are the most popular as they are more suitable for aquarium life and fairly hardy.

What size is your tank, what lighting do you have, and what are your exact parameters? You'll need stable water conditions with low nutrients and reef lighting to keep any nem long-term.

 

My params are:
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrates: just above zero, I need a more accurate test
Ph: 8.2
Temp: very constant: 81~82
Salinity: very constant: 1.023~1.024

I have a 75 gallon with a dual fluorescent (1 actinic 1 10000k fluorescent)
For filtration I have a wet dry sump that I'm converting to a refugium. I also have a penguin dual bio wheel that is just a supplement. As for biological filtration, I have about 60lbs of live rock. I also have a dsb

For flow, I have a 750 gph koralia, and my return pump is somewhere in the 500's.

I do weekly water changes of 5 gallons, then 10, then 5, etc. It just gets too expensive to be doing 10 every week.

The only supplements I add to my water are PH buffer, and purple up to add color every once in a while.

What is a fairly hardy anemone that my true perc will host? I know you said BTA's, but I'm out in Minnesota, so the prices at our LFS are jacked up from transportation costs (a bubble tip is almost $120!). Are long tentacle anemones a good option?

 

Ps: I know my lights aren't the greatest, I'm currently saving up for a custom led fixture.

 

Your lighting definitely needs to be upgraded before adding a nem. What you have is only good for low-light soft corals and mushrooms.

You could probably keep a LTA; just keep in mind that your clown has a mind of her own and may never take to any nem regardless of species or anything you do for encouragement. I see that here a lot, and had it happen to me in the past, as well.

 

What is the purpose of your weekly water changes? You might be better off doing a larger water change once a month instead of a small one weekly.

As to clown fish hosting, i've gotten a "wild" percula to host an anemone by taping pictures of other clowns hosting. This sounds really crazy and I'm not 100% sure if it was because of the pictures or because it just wanted to host... but it wouldn't host for over a month and then a couple of weeks later it was hosting.

 

A lot of LPS corals will host clowns as well. I know there is a thread on here right now that is active about a clown hosting Frogspawn. I know there are cases where Leathers have hosted them as well.