Mated pair of Maroon Clowns questions

[Water World]

Morning all!!
I would like to establishing a mated pair of Maroon Clowns (not gold striped) in my 65 show tank. I wanted to find out in "real life" what some of you have experienced.
1) How much room did a mated pair take up? Would a 65 be large enough
2) Do they harass any fish that comes near them.
3) Should they be by themselves in a tank?
4) Any other suggestions or advise??

[FMarini]

Howdy from Houston tx.
So last q? first
4) Any other suggestions or advise?
Absolutely, the best source of info on breeding clown is Joyce wilkerson book Clownfish. I highly recommend it. Its an easy read and contains lots of background info and useful tips.


1) How much room did a mated pair take up? Would a 65 be large enough
More than enuf, clowns will spawn in 30-45gals no problem. Even the large clown species will do well in a 40gal.
2) Do they harass any fish that comes near them.
well yes they do, anyfish that invades their nesting/hosting space will be harassed. Otherwise they keep to themselves and protect their host.
3) Should they be by themselves in a tank?
It all depends what you want as an endresult. If you want a tank w/ a host anemone and 2 clownfish that wonderful.Otherwise in this 65, you could have the clownfish host on one end of the tank and lots of rockwork and other fish thruout. This will be a nice display. If you want to breed these fish then i would recommend you plan accordingly. meaning think seriously about just having clowns.

Are you planning a host aneome or host coral?
can you describe the setup
frank

[Water World]

Thanks for your reply Frank. This is a relative new tank that I set up October. The only current fish are Banded Goby, Foxface, Flame Hawk and Royal Gramma. I have added this weekend some shrooms as my first step into the "Reefing" world. I will most likely add a anemone as a host for the clowns, knowing that the anemone will bear watching till it finds it's spot. I haven't thought about corals as a host. Any suggestion would be welcomed. I have tried to make natural divisions in the tank using 60# of LR...(Knowing that my division will be different than what a fish would think.)
Current setup: 36x18x24, 60# LR, 110w PC. 120#DSB, two maxjet and a 250 magnum HOT for water polishing. Planned hardware in the next few month AquaC Remora Pro skimmer and 4x96w PC (maybe MH, still thinking that one through).
My end result is to have a nice reef with some reef safe fish that were mated pairs. If I really want to start breeding then a separate tank for a controlled environment would be the way to go.

Thanks Again jimmy c

[Dman]

Water World
As a beginning breeder myself of Maroon Clownfishes, I would have to second FMarini's advice regarding joyce WIlkerson's book. It has everything you need to know without getting too bogged down in the science. A great read for the layperson. My mated clowns were pretty much oblivious to everything around them as long as the other occupants didn't invade their "space". they did however tolerate my Flame Angel so much so I wondered if they were a threesome:>
As for the 65 being big enough, yup. I have moved my clowns to a breeding tank which is a 65 split down the middle, giving them about 33 gallons worth of space, only so that I can persue breeding them, otherwise I would have left them with the others in my main display tank.
HTH

[Water World]

Thanks Dman: And thank goodness for forums like this. I hate to blast LFS, but the advice I got from them was 180 out. They sounded like a 65 with a pair of M. clowns was it and nothing else.
Thank all for the reply. Time for me to do my homeowrk and start reading WIlkerson's book.

jc