This thread has steered waaay off course, but let's clarify a few things...
Quote:
Originally Posted by maxxII
Finsky,
I'm not advocating keeping anemones without clowns. I'm advocating acclimating anemones without clowns until they are healthy enough to handle it. There is a difference.
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+1. There are many accounts of clowns being very "rough" on anemones. I've experienced it as well. When I first added my purple gigantea, my onyx clowns tried to torpedo their way into the anemone's mouth. The gig died three weeks later -- I don't think it was exclusively a result of the clowns beating up the anemone, but the clowns definitely didn't "help" the anemone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finsky
As far as bringing food to the anemone, my Tomato clowns never bring food when I broadcast feed my tank three times per week or lightly feed on off days. The only time I have noticed my Tomatos, the female usually, bringing "food" to an anemone is when I have been target feeding the five Bubble Tip anemones and one True Carpet anemone with their weekly 1/2" pieces of razor clam. The clownfish will only return a large piece of razor clam that was floating freely and they put it in the anemone. I suppose you could get differing views on whether she is "hiding" razor clam in the anemones to eat herself later or "feeding" the anemones. My female Tomato will nuzzle an anemone with a 1/2" piece of razor clam inside it has wrapped around almost appearing to nuzzle the food very lightly.
I would wonder what Julius Sprung would say about your insight into unsuccessful clownfish hosting and your clowns behavior towards your anemones. I think it is possible to have a clownfish do more harm than good with a "sick" anemone although the "sick" anemone maybe is sick in the first place due to incorrect water quality, lighting, circulation in the tank, feeding, etc. I think with all these aspects correct for your anemone, a hosting or clownfish hosting in the anemone is a good thing more often than not. I can only say this from my experience and what I have read.
Please visit the following Web site link to read more on clownfish and anemones which is "probably" written with input by one or more Marine Biologists?
http://blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatfi...ne-preference/ |
Rather than reading blogs from a pet store, I suggest picking up a copy of "Anemone Fishes and Their Host Sea Anemones" by Fautin and Allen. Fautin is recognized as
the clownfish and host anemone expert.
Here's what the book says about clowns feeding anemones:
"Recall that clownfishes are never found in nature without an anemone; this is an obligate association for them, although in captivity they are capable of living by themselves. It seems obvious that they are protected by the anemone with which they live -- when threatened, they dive among its tentacles, from which most other fishes remain distant. We have taken clownfish far from their anemones, and have removed anemones from beneath their fish. Poor swimmers, they sooner (in the former instance) or later (in the latter) became prey of larger fish. The presence of an anemone is also essential to reproduction of the fishes: their eggs are laid beneath the oral disc overhang of the anemone, where they are tended by the male (see chapter 4).
In an aquarium, without an actinian, captive fish will bathe among air bubbles or frondose vegetation, so we infer that they obtain tactile stimulation from anemone tentacles. And the claim of some aquarists that the fish are livelier and healthier when kept with anemones suggests other benefits as well.
Indeed, aquarists have added much to knowledge of this symbiosis. Many have seen fish bring food to their anemones. This behaviour seems confined to aquaria. The normal diet of clownfishes is small plants and animals that live in the water above the anemone, or algae that grow around it (chapter 4). In nature, they do not encounter large particles of food, so they eat their food where it is found. Feeding large morsels to a fish in an aquarium produces an artifact: the fish, unable to devour the piece immediately, takes it home to work on it in the relative security of its own territory, as is typical of predators that obtain food in large amounts. But the territory in this case consumes the food!"
Finally, I think you meant Julian Sprung, unless he's got a brother named Julius.
