Carzy mixed species Harem attempt

[PC_LOAD_LTR]

I am transferring everything from my 56 to a 120, so I had a crazy idea.... lets make a (mini) clown harem!

I put two clay pots in the 120 to give them separate areas to congregate, and plan on moving my two RBTAs fromt he 56 in this weekend. (My percs never hosted in the RBTAs. Hopefully the new ones will.)

I have a pair of true percs in the 56 that are paired up for the last 5 years.

last week, I bought the following:
2 black occelarus
1 domino occelarus
1 juvenile Nearly naked (I think its a perc looking at the eyes)
These all came from different systems at the LFS, and not all juveniles

When I got home, I went fishing for my existing pair and acclimated them all for the 120 at the same time (in 5 different containers)

At midnight, after lights out, I added them all to the DT. The 4 new clowns and the male from my Percs all gathered together, while the female Perc ran off to the corner by herself for a bit. (after a few minutes, she came over to hang with the rest)

a week later, the true percs are back to hanging in the corner by themselves (lust like they did in the 56)
The other 4 are all cavorting about having a good time. The percs occasionally come out to play too. I have not witnessed any aggression or chasing (other than the female perc keeping tabs on her partner) , nobody seems to be stressed.

I think the key to this was new territory for everyone at the same time. Keeping my fingers crossed.

I will post videos soon.

[davocean]

Well, keep in mind most harems are juvies from same clutch, mature pairs will probably not put up w/ much, especially as they spawn.

I personally would not risk harming my nice clowns in doing this, but best of luck.

BTA is not natural to percs, usually takes a bit longer to recognize

[PC_LOAD_LTR]

Yeah. They are starting to nit pick at each other now. I thought that the new ones were smaller, but the biggest of them is just a tad smaller than my female perc. They have been ganging up on the male perc. But not too aggressive.

The new ones were all in harems at the lfs. Thought i was at least getting all males.

My phone is not cooperating with trying to upload photos or video. I will post soon


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[davocean]

Even if they were all males you have a mix of species and not all juvy clowns from same clutch as most successful harems are, and even those will have some pecking off.
I would guess the nitpicking to escalate as they mature

[PC_LOAD_LTR]

I have separated the domino and now all is calm. Unfortunately, i did not do this until after my male perc went missing. Domino was still keeping the female perc trapped in the corner.

Now female perc is out with the others. Have not witnessed any aggression


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[BonsaiNut]

Originally Posted by PC_LOAD_LTR

Have not witnessed any aggression

Are you going to keep repeating this phrase until all clowns are dead except one or perhaps two?

I mean really... why bother. I'm not being a troll - you are killing animals with your ignorance.

[PC_LOAD_LTR]

Originally Posted by BonsaiNut

I mean really... why bother. I'm not being a troll - you are killing animals with your ignorance.

I will respond to your trollful comment by saying this.

I am happy to have crossed path with the perfect reefkeeper who has never had any losses. In the future, I will check with you before any decisions.

Please add to the discussion with useful comments instead of being an old school “that wont work cuz i said so” troll type


This was not a willy nilly couple hundred i spent on fish to see if works. It was based on several pieces of information, which i have been lax in describing ( and in uploading videos). Please forgive me if i repeat points from the original post

1- these six fish came from four different tanks all introduced to a new tank together, therefore nobody coming into established territory


2- the new fish all came from harems at the LFS. And none were the largest of the harem

3- the LFS regularly mixes species and adds new juvies to their tanks

4- i tried to get new fish that were all smaller than my existing true perc pair. Unfortunately, the domino was close to the same size as my male perc, and was acting aggressively. Which is why he has now been moved to qt.

5 - at the LFS, i heard the “cant mix perc and occ” from another customer while discussing the situation. Some research found that this is not true. In fact some of the designer clowns are actually cross breeds between perc and occ.

6- reviewing tanks at the LFS found perc and occ living peacefully together


Feel free to add constructive comments on my experiment. I realize that it is a risk, but it was a calculated one. I also hope that, if this is a huge mistake, others will read of my experiment before attempting the same thing.

So far, 1 confirmed mistake. One of the newbies was too close in size to the other adults. But the other adult black occ that are 3/4 the size of the female perc are not causing any trouble.





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[BonsaiNut]

Originally Posted by PC_LOAD_LTR

Feel free to add constructive comments on my experiment. I realize that it is a risk, but it was a calculated one. I also hope that, if this is a huge mistake, others will read of my experiment before attempting the same thing.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over... and expecting different results.

What exactly is your "experiment"? To me and many others on this forum it is doing exactly the same thing that others have done - which resulted in dead fish - and your "experiment" yielded the same results. Have you tried using the search function? What leads you to believe that you know more, and will have better luck, than the numerous others who had previously tried what you just did - and failed while trying it?

Perhaps you don't like my response to your cavalier attitude, but I believe as reef-keepers we have an ethical responsibility to provide the best possible care for our animals. I found it sadly amusing that you started your thread with the comment "have not witnessed any aggression"... and then two threads of nothing but aggression and a dead fish... and then another post of "have not witnessed any aggression".

I'll bet the dead fish witnessed some aggression.

[mnchartier]

Originally Posted by PC_LOAD_LTR

I will respond to your trollful comment by saying this.

BonsaiNut is not trolling you. This poster is one that is extremely knowledgeable and is very well respected here. What you are doing has been tried many times and being successful in what you are doing is the outlier, hence where BonsaiNut is coming from, seen it more often than we should.

[BonsaiNut]

In the spirit of positive change, perhaps what we need is a sticky thread titled something like "so you want to keep more than one clownfish in your reef tank".

I just checked, and there is nothing like that on the forum, so perhaps it would be a worthwhile endeavor so that more people understand what's going on with clown aggression. You wouldn't think small fish would be so mean, but after decades as a dive master, if I had my choice of being in the water with a tiger shark, or a tiger shark sized female maroon clown... I would take the shark They don't kill their mates.

[PC_LOAD_LTR]

That is one thing i was not sure about. Where is the line between establishing the pecking order and aggression.

In the end i decided that the domino was being aggressive after seeing it continue to harass the percs even when they backed off into the corner at feeding time. That is why it moved to qt. Since then my perc is out with the black occ and naked during feeding time


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[aznflyfisherman]

PC I have a paired of mocha clowns, pair percula and a yellow stripe paired with a lightning maroon clown. They are in my 110g mix reef.

[jaynel78]

I had an osc and perc live together for almost 2yrs. I got them both as juvies and traded them in together when I left the hobby. The Lfs was shocked that they were able to thrive together. I did not have any anemones in the tank. Not sure if that were a wild card or not....

[Zagzoo71]

My opinion if you want to mix clowns do it from the same family line. My tank I have 55 clownfish, that is made up of helmets, picassos, platiums, and darwins, but they all are from the percula family. almost a year and all 55 still living and no aggression. Each type were from the same clutch, all put in tank same time as juvi's.

Just my .02 cents.

[Kinetic]

I got 7 different ocellaris (well, two were mocha davinci) and tried it. There is always one that is picked on bad, you remove it and the agression stops, then the next one starts getting picked on until you end up with 2 or 3. I have three now, the mocha davinci pair and one davinci, and they do fine, but it was a constant removal.

I believe if you have enough it could be better, or you'd need them to be extremely close in size (which is achieved with ones from the same clutch usually).

[D-Nak]

Originally Posted by Zagzoo71

My opinion if you want to mix clowns do it from the same family line. My tank I have 55 clownfish, that is made up of helmets, picassos, platiums, and darwins, but they all are from the percula family. almost a year and all 55 still living and no aggression. Each type were from the same clutch, all put in tank same time as juvi's.

Just my .02 cents.

Darwins are black and white ocellaris. Sounds like they're doing well, so it's a non-issue, just wanted to point out that they're not all percula.

[D-Nak]

Originally Posted by Kinetic

I got 7 different ocellaris (well, two were mocha davinci) and tried it. There is always one that is picked on bad, you remove it and the agression stops, then the next one starts getting picked on until you end up with 2 or 3. I have three now, the mocha davinci pair and one davinci, and they do fine, but it was a constant removal.

I believe if you have enough it could be better, or you'd need them to be extremely close in size (which is achieved with ones from the same clutch usually).

This sounds about right.

Even in my tank with 8 gigs and what started with 18 Picassos from the same clutch co-existing in peace, is ending up to be the smallest one out. This didn't start until about a few months ago. Now that they're all about 2" the pack constantly picks on one until it never goes into the hosting nems, and swims around the top of the tank. I have to remove the one getting picked on. I'm down to 14 in the DT.