melev

Yesterday, Tammy stopped by to visit. I featured her 800g reef on my youtube channel, and she wanted to visit. If you recall, she's been breeding clownfish for a while, and I've been wanting a tank full of clownfish ever since I saw a 120g grand prize starphire tank at MACNA in 2002. You could win the tank, the liverock, the stand, filtration and about 50 clownfish. It was absolutely stunning. Everyone said you can't keep all the clowns, because invariably they will fight and pick one off at a time until you are down to two.

I didn't win it, naturally. Every year at MACNA, ORA sets up a stunning tank filled with clowns. It's a huge draw, and that tank is photographed hundreds of time. Here's an example.

How about this tank?

I know it's a display, and only up for a few days. But WOW, imagine that. And I have. A lot.

The Anemone Cube has been nice, but I was getting bored with it. The eels entertain me, but all the anemones needed more activity. The male clownfish had died, and the female that I've had about 10 years had grown very timid and reclusive. I wouldn't see her much. She wasn't interested in eating much either. That cube needed more clownfish.

What I wanted was 40 of Tammy's clowns. But that's crazy, right? Still, it would look great and make me happy. The 60g cube is tied into the sump of the 400g, and water quality would be filtered. I had two concerns: How would the female clown respond, and would the eels decide these new fish would be delicious...

If push came to shove, I could move the female clown out of the cube into the frag system. The eels are fed every night, so if their bellies' are full, they shouldn't be hunting clown meat. I did reach out to Matt Pedersen since he's a breeder and asked for his input. He felt 40 was too many, and that longterm it wouldn't work out.

So I compromised on 20. I called Tammy and asked her to bring her larger ones, which are about 1" long. They have been in a small breeder setup and then later in a 40g aquarium. They don't fight, and are a darker coloration that I find very appealing. Mocha, or even cappuccino coloration. She arrived with a bucket, and we immediately added an air pump to oxygenate the water, and I added some Prime to lock up any ammonia. A slow drip acclimation was started, and we shot some video for an upcoming youtube episode.

It took over four hours to get the salinity up. Turns out Tammy's system had a lower salinity than she knew. I gave her some 35ppt calibration solution to take home and verify her refractometer's accuracy (which she always calibrated with RO water - not a good practice, btw).

Tammy added the clownfish so lovingly to the aquarium. Scooping them into a rubbermaid container, she lowered that into the aquarium so her babies could swim out. They came out one by one, and swam toward the female clown as we held our breath. She just gently bobbed up and down like clownfish do, resembling Orcas in my opinion. The babies just said hi and then swam about in the tank. The flow was minimal as the Vortech was off. The female seemed happy to see new faces, and came out from under an anemone.

The rest of the clowns were added the same way, and the tank instantly looked so much more interesting. Here's a quick iPhone picture.

No hostility has been seen. The eels haven't been an issue either. I fed them last night. The baby clowns were eating immediately, which was New Era small pellet food Tammy brought along. And later they ate some Rod's Food. Nice!

Staying up all night working, I checked on them frequently as well as to watch the eels for any signs of concern. Those clowns were swimming in a ball, and it was adorable. They stayed grouped up all night long. The female seemed to be trying to coax them into the anemones, but so far they haven't shown any interest.

I totally see why people want to breed clowns now. Their activity and grouping is a blast. For years I've talked about trying it and need to actually commit to the process.

These clowns are a mix, and are about six months old. I'm looking forward to seeing how this works out over the next year or so. Every time I glance over at the cube, I see some clowns and the female is out in the open. I've watched a few clowns basically kiss her body, as if they were cleaning her. Precious.

An upcoming video will show the entire event, as well as an interview with Tammy.