Clowns Protecting Their Nem

cdness · Apr 16, 2012

So I have a pair of Saddleback clowns which host an LTA. When feeding the tank, my wife will squirt a little food to the LTA so it can eat as well. Next thing she sees is the yellow tang picking food right out of the LTA. The female clown moves in to protect her nem and the tang tailwhips her looks like a chunk is taken out of her top fin. The tang will just continue to pick on the nem and is not phased at all from the sting.

Is there anything I can do to help let the LTA eat and not get picked on by the tang? It is in an area where none of the "bottle feeding" tricks will work. I am less scared of the nem getting hurt than the female clown as she will try to protect the nem it seems at all costs.

To add to this, the Yellow Tang will not try to pick food out of the RBTA with the other pair of clowns. I don't know what's different with the LTA as I thought their sting was supposed to be stronger than the RBTA's sting...

Trex · Apr 16, 2012

The sting of an M. doreensis isn't all that strong -- my Potter's dwarf angel will routinely swim through the tentacles of mine.

My concern would be the anemone not eating/grabbing onto the food fast enough that the tang can still get to it. Any piece of food should be wrapped up by the tentacles almost immediately -- how long have you had the LTA?

revhtree · Apr 16, 2012

Honestly I would think the clowns themselves would carry food back to the anemone. Do you see this going on?

phil519 · Apr 16, 2012

Why even mess with little bits of food that a tang can get? if you are serious about feeding an anemone then cut chunks of silver-sides or similar fish and use tongs to feed the nem. no fish would mess with such huge piece of food before the nem completely eats it.

The other argument that people make is that they never ever feed the nem, that the fish will bring food or the nem has enough via photosynthesis.

one last thought would be to distract the tang with either algae sheet or more food while feeding the LTA. A distracted tang makes for a peaceful nem meal.

Reef Breeders · Apr 16, 2012

I never fed my nems after I learned more on them. As a begginer, I fed them shrimp, but soon found out that the did not need it at all. I had a carpet nem grow to 15" across before I sold it, without feeding. I still have a mini maxi, provided he does not move, and he is just fine near the bottom of the tank photosynthesizing.

cdness · Apr 16, 2012

I have had the nem for a few weeks. I got it from the LFS here and he was sticky but not attached to a rock. I made sure he has a nice place for the foot and has not moved since I placed him other than to set his food deeper. It is really starting to open up nice since getting it to my tank and it is eating the food. The yellow is just really fast.

I will try the larger pieces of food and see if that helps. I thought less but more often would be better but I'll cut down the feedings and try larger.

Rev, the clowns do feed the nem, but they just started hosting it so it is new for them. They came from a tank without a nem so it is kinda new.

Skinpuppi · Apr 26, 2012

I prefer to feed silversides to my nems about 10mins after feeding the fish.

zoodood · Apr 29, 2012

I have to feed them both at the same time...keeps the fish occupied so they don't attempt to steal from the nem before it's got a good hold of the food.

Ericm1205 · May 7, 2012

Be wary of using silversides. I seen to many horror stories about feeding bad silversides and killing the nem and possibly the tank. I would feed fresh seafood.
But I never feed any of my nems at all. I had many of them from carpets to lta and bta's. They really don't need fed and when I feed my tank the nem will get some food floating around. I don't want my nems getting to big to fast that's why I don't feed them.

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jbanker · May 8, 2012

I had 3 clownfishes before and had them to pair up with my angelfishes and I would likely consider that as a sustainable setup. Of course I had a number of other fishes on the aquarium but they were more of an addition just to fill the empty space rather than additional pieces.

They actually look really nice even though there are some people who do not really appreciate what they are worth.