Maroon and Anemone

Well I have had my maroon clown in my tanks for about 6 months and decided to get an green bubble anemone about a month ago and found one at an LFS that was rather small but thought I would go with it anyway even though I knew it was smaller than the clown. All my parameters have been great, Mag-1350, PH 8.3, Calc-480, Alk-8dkh, no phosphates, no ammonia, no nitrites, nitrates at consistent 5, Temp 78 degrees but does drop to 76.5 overnight. Tank has been this way for months with these parameters.

Back to what I think may be a problem and why I am here. The clown within days of my putting the anemone in started hosting to it. I thought awesome but the clown is so much bigger(twice the size of the anemone for sure) and it seems the green bubble anemone can't get settled in. Sometimes it attatches its foot to a piece of live rock and bubbles out. As soon as it does this the clown just plows all over him and I will look a couple of hours later and the anemone is off the rock laying in the sand(sometimes upside down). The clown still does not always leave him alone even when the anemone is not attatched to anything. Overnight I will see the anemone has attatched again and then later he is off laying in the sand. This has been happening for a month now, what should I do? Is the clown too big for the anemone? Should I just leave all alone? Another thing I witnessed the other day it the anemone was on the sand right side up bubbled out when the clown came over and started plowing all over it it shrank it tips in after a bit. Then the clown literally picked up the anemone in its mouth and moved him about 4 inches and dropped the anemone(NO BS it really happened). I am so confused as to what to do, it seems to me the clown is like a little kid about to break his favorite toy. Sorry such a long post.

 

i would return the anemone and buy a larger one. that clown sounds way too big and will eventually love that anemone to death.

 

I doubt the clown will hurt it. They feed the anemone when they take residence in it. Give it time and see what happens. If you are really stressed about it put the clown in time out for a couple of weeks to allow the anemone to settle in.

 

Yes I have been watching this entire interaction very closely because I do not want the anemone to get hurt. I have not seen any injury to its foot in any way. I don't understand why the anemone lets go of the rocks when he re-attatches himself. Anyway I will take your advice 2in10 and wait it out a couple of more weeks. I was thinking instead of putting the clown in time out to go and buy a large anemone and hopefully the clown will go play with it until the little one can get situated and grow, I love to buy small livestock and watch it progress and don't want to take the little anemone back, I would rather take care of him and watch him get big. Thanks for the advice.

 

I would probably agree with SAY on this one. Also, do you know if the nem was captive raised or wild caught? Maroon clowns can be quite rough and BTAs quite fragile when they are small. This is especially true of the small wild caught BTAs since they tend to be collected after storms and can be a bit beat up to begin with. Sometimes it's ok though, just no way to tell, if the bta looks stressed, at a minimum, you probably should separate the clown from it.

Here is one account of a similar situation
Melev's first Rose BTA

 

HAHAHAHAHA
that is too funny

 

I agree you should probably separate the two. Sometimes clowns are just too affectionate (for lack of a better word) and can stress the anemone. If the anemone is not remaining in one area and not footed those are not good signs IMO.

 

Anemones should be 3x the size of the clown.

big clown kills little anemone.