Clownfish advice

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#1
I have one big black and white clown in my display and two clarki clowns in sump. What would happen if I move the clarki into display?


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Joined
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#7
And my last tank I had three clown fish that all got long is that rare
Just means they were juveniles. Clownfish are extremely territorial. Extremely. If you swim too close to their anemone in the wild, they will attack and bite you - I know from first hand experience. I would rather swim close to a shark than a large angry female maroon.

What usually happens in a tank with multiple clowns is that they often seem to get along... until the two largest/most dominant pair up and become sexually mature. Then the beat-down starts. They might look fine during the day, but then at night they start chasing the smaller fish out of their anemone... and this rapidly expands to chasing the smaller fish farther and farther away. Usually the smaller clowns will eventually be killed, become stressed and diseased and die, or literally be chased out of the tank - ending up on your floor at 3AM and leaving you wondering why a fish would jump out of a tank.

If you have a BIG tank (i.e. 300 gallons or larger) and a LOT of clowns, you can sometimes keep large groups together - because they will spread their aggression equally and not focus too much on individuals. In the best case, I was able to keep two breeding pairs in a 125 long because they were different species, each had their own anemones at opposite ends of the tank, and the rockwork prevented them from having direct lines of sight from each other. But groups of clowns living peacefully together is the exception - not the rule. For every person who brags about being successful with a group of clowns there are 100 who have tried and failed for the reasons I pointed out.
 
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#8
What are the most expensive clowns out there
These:

AmphipMac4DJB.jpg


Followed by these (see also the fish in my avatar):

where-are-you-2.jpg


If you have to ask, they're too expensive for you :) Most reefers have never even seen them, let alone had a chance to buy one.

At least these are available in the trade, albeit rarely. I am not including fish like the Omani Anemonefish, which are not allowed to be collected. This guy says "hands off my clownfish!" :) (Sultan of Oman)

oman.jpg
 
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#10
I had 4 (two pairs) from a pair of tanks we consolidated, in a 90. One died, the other almost died. They seemed fine for about 4 weeks, then one day I noticed one was dead all beat up and the other had shreaded tails. Interesting, there were two black occs and two normal occs, they split up and formed inter-color relations.

That being said I upgraded to a larger tank, again consolidating the 90 and a 65 frag tank into one and I have 2 percs and one of the occ pairs all living in the 240 for about 2 years now with no appearant issues. The percs are much smaller than the occs. the surviving orange occ is living in my fuge (90g) along with an outcast pj cardinal.

two different outcomes based on size of tank.
 

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