My condylactis anemone ate my ocellaris clown

ok, so im a little new to this. I've had a tank with 3 green spotted puffers and a newly adopted figure 8 but have just recently decided to try a saltwater tank. its a 29 gallon. i have live sand, live rock, and i let it cycle with 3 damsels for a month. I recently bought 2 clownfish. One true percula and an ocellaris. They were getting along great. Also we have a mandarin goby. I wanted to see if the tank would sustain an anemone so i bought a cheap one, a condylactis anemone. which didnt look bad and was only about $15. I wanted a more expensive one that was recommended for our clowns but didnt want to spend $70 on something that might not make it. This afternoon I got up and started to get ready for work and i noticed my ocellaris was missing. I searched high and low and moved all of the rocks around as the damsels that we cycled the tank with loved to go in them and burrow under them. No occellaris anywhere, checked all the rocks, behind equipment in the tank, everywhere and i couldnt find him. I noticed that the anemone was rather healthy looking for the light to have been off. After about an hour of searching and not finding the clownfish I dicided that the anemone must have, well, ate him. So i started trying to see if i could tell if there was anything in it. I moved him around a lot and must have caused him enough stress that he finally spit him out. He was already dead though. Needless to say I took the anemone back to the LFS and am searching for something better. Figured I might save a few people some heartache. Also wanted to know some good ideas for my fish seeing as i will probably be buying another ocellaris, or perhaps another percula. Has anyone else had this happen? What type of fish/anemone should I buy. I had this anemone for about a month and he stayed healthy and was growing so I'm sure the tank can sustain it. Any help, stories, or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

The clown may have been unhealthy. Rarely would an anemone eat a fish that isn't sick or weak. Condy's usually aren't hosted by clowns, either.

 

well first off get that mandrin out of that tank asap, unless your buying pods everyday its going to die and die fast

second an anem should not be added to a tank thats less tehn 6 months old, it will to die in time


third do you still have the damsels? i would not add more then 3 or 4 total fish to that tank as its very small

 

I personally would not put another perculla in the tank, they will fight for dominance. Maybe an africian cleaner warsser, nice color and keeps ick away...Would consider getting a cleaner crew if you dont have any yet, snails, hermit crabs, shrimp.. Just my opinion though...

 

The ocellaris was actually acting a little funny the night before, also, the anemone had curled up, as it did when i fed it, anytime my healthy percula touched it, it that a sign that my percula is sick? I am feeding the goby pods also, no worries there. Thanks for all the help though!

 

gee thats like getting told off by your school teacher :-/

 

Yes but they are all good points also.

Any anemone can eat a fish (including clowns) at any time. Just the way it goes sometimes, although it's not very common.

 

jordan I am going to have to agree with the advice given here on your tank. Sometimes advice is a hard pill to swallow but as you will learn most people here are willing to be very helpful because many of them have been there done that and dont want to see the needless death and suffering of any fish or livestock. I have purchased a few things before doing research and contributed to the death of a Linkia Star, as well as one Mandarin, one thing I learned is lots of research and questions before buying and adding anything, and dont always trust what the lfs tells you. Just my .02, good luck with your tank, lets see some pics.

 

Yea you're moving way too fast here. Even for a condy anemone the tank is too young. Plus what kind of lights do you have, anyway?

I'll bet your clown died due to bad water conditions set on by the speed at which you are trying to move this tank along and it just happened to float by the condy and the anemone took its chance against an either already dead or very very weak piece of prey.

 

I am glad that you did return the anemone. While it is rare that anemones will eat a fish it is not unheard of! Like said before the clown might have been ill, or......if it was a tank bred clown it might not have known how to "host" the nem. I had a RBTA (I got rid of it because I did not want to risk it nuking my tank) and 2 tank raised picassos. One of my picasso knew exactly how to go up and approach it as it was raised with one, but my other one had no idea. He would go up to it and get stung, swim away wiht its tail between its legs, and reapproach it. I thought for sure this fish was going ot get killed as it was tore up pretty well. It finally figured it out and to its anger, I got rid of the RBTA!

Also I would get rid of those damsels if you plan on keeping anything else in that tank. Not only are you maxed out fish wise already those damsels will become VERY AGGRESSIVE and will not allow you to keep anything else! Trade them in for something else (check water first) I would only recommend adding 1 thing at a time.

Plus recommendation wise..do you want corals, or just fish? Plus what type of light do you have? Good luck