[km133688]

You may be able to keep multiple pairs, if you rock scape heavily and appropriatley. I have never kept multiple pairs of clowns so this is just conjecture based on my experience with one clown pair and other breeding fish pairs in the same tank. It goes like this:

I find my clown pair stays well close to their anemone. Within 3 inches most of the time. I have only observed my clowns moving outside a 1ft diameter in one situation and that is only the momma clown and only when she is feasting at feeding time on her mysis shrimp. Clownfish (and I presume most other fish pairs) want to have a home and once they take to an anemone they are highly "rooted" IME.

You can use thus "home zones" or territoriality to your advantage. I use rock to create seperate areas in my tank, and the fish I have placed in each area stay in their area. I have three zones, a seahorse zone, a clownfish zone, and a banggai cardinalfish zone (left, middle, right respectively). My fish don't roam and I think it has a lot to do with the rock scaping. There can roam if they want too, for example I have seen horses occassionally on each side of the tank, and the banggai floating at night within 1 ft of the clownfish egg nest, but these are rare happenings. They all have a safe haven to call home with plenty of food every day so why leave?. My tank is a 125 and 6 ft long.

I would bet you could keep two pair easy, on opposite sides of a 55g (I assume 4ft long), if you use rock to divide the tank in half. If you were aggressive you could even try thirds but I would not go any farther than that as after accounting for the space the rock takes, you would be reducing your fish zones to under 1ft diameter.

My clowns have been laying for 2 years straight and haven't missed a beat regardless of all tank changes and moves etc. so they are pretty happy fish when given a safe place to call their own with plenty of food.

Once thing to note, is that you may have trouble if you put other non-clowns that are roaming fish, in the tank (read Tangs et.al.). There fish cross boundaries and generally dont' respect other fish's "home zones", and thereby cause other fish to be nervous when they do. So if you are doing a multi-pair clown tank, and you put other fish in it, be careful what you choose.

Good luck, Kevin