A couple of ClownFish questions..

I have 2 clownfish who keep hiding in holes in rocks and in caves that my goby have made.. There is no fish that would threaten the clowns so I was wondering if anyone has any idea for this behavior? Could they be breeding? Dying? I am so confused!! These 2 clowns are tank raised.

Also, I recently purchased 2 more (I plan on getting rid of my tank raised clownfish, which is why I purchased the wild raised ones.. in hopes of the wild ones hosting an anemone..)clownfish that are wild raised and realized that one of them had black spots. Is this normal? Should we be concerned? What could have caused it?

I have a Condy and a Sebae Anemone and my clownfish are showing no interest in hosting either.. any ideas on that?

 

Sounds like they could be mating. As far as the black spots it may either be black ich or just an injury. Make sure there is nothing in your tank that could do any damage to them. Check out pictures of clownfish with injuries and it should give you an idea if that it whats going on. Its pretty tough to get anything to host a condy, never really heard much about the sebae. Seems that most of them favor long tentacle anemones or bubble tip anemones.

 

Seeing as you have two pairs of clowns (What species are they btw?) this could be the reason for them hiding. The WC can be more aggressive than CB fish. You really should have found the CB Clowns a good home or at least traded them in before introducing WC Clowns. WC can also harbor disease that the CBs are not immune to.
As for hosting the nems, give it time. There is absolutely no guarantee that either WC or CB Clowns will host at all. Some wont host a nem at all but will host Xenia, frogspawn or hammers. Some wont host anything and some will host all. Its all a luck of the draw.

 

ive had my percula a week and its yet to go anywhere near the condy nem i have. i read an article that you can supposedly turn the lights out on the tank, wait awhile for the clown to go into its listless looking sleep state and gently sort of move the clown fish toward the anemone with your hand. after a few days of this it should start to feel at home in the anemone tentacles. it sounded crazy to me, but i tried it and the first two times i moved my hand too fast and the clown freaked out. i tried it again tonight and i got it to move about 6 inches in the water before it hit a different water current and sorta woke up and swam away. ill have to turn the powerhead near the anemone off to get it closer when it goes listless. its current spot to sleep in is about a foot away.

good luck in getting yours to host the anemones you have. ill let you know if this crazy idea of moving the fish works....

 

I have never heard of some one trying to actually force a fish to a spot of the aquarists choice. That's bizarre.
I wouldn't try it just because it's stressful to the fish.

 

I'm not sure I would try forcing it into the anemone either. I've read that they sometimes need to acclimate themselves and their slime coat to the anemone, if they aren't ready for it you could do some damage to them and get them stung, or worse, eaten.
I've heard that you can start shining a flashlight on the anemone a minute before the lights go out, then when the lights do go out the only thing illuminated will be the anemone, it may take a few tries but I've heard of people being successful with this method, or maybe the clowns were just ready to start hosting and it was just a coincidence.

 

yeah i couldnt really believe it when i read it. it was bizzarre. ill find the link