Divided clown reef?

[Lydia Mohr]

I’m not actually planning to do this for quite some time, so this is all hypothetical at this point. I have an old standard 15 gallon I would want to haul out of my attic and set up as a reef for clowns. My initial plan was to just have one pair of ocellaris clowns, since clown pairs don’t like outsiders. But then I read somewhere that in the wild, a clownfish pair’s territory is generally about 12x12x12, which also happens to be the dimensions of equal halves of my 15 gallon. So, I thought about entertaining the idea of dividing the 15 gallon and having a pair of ocellaris clowns for each half. Would this concept be doable, or would the bio load be too much? Should I just stick with my initial idea?

 

[dedragon]

Probably overstocked in a 15 for 4 clowns, but I have also asked this question to breeders before for info on setting up a breeding clownfish tank. I was told to use the dimensions of a 10 gallon standard tank as the minimum for each clownfish pair, so splitting a 15 gallon wouldnt be best for 2 clown pairs

 

[biecacka]

I had 4 clownfish in my 240 gallon (48/48/24) and it didn’t end well. they fought all the time, one “forced pair” was banished to the return nozzle area. If they moved from there the other pair attacked them. I eventually caught them and gave them to a buddy.
I did try adding ohers later. I live near a local breeder who said SOMETIMES siblings won’t fight but your best bet is from the same clutch. So when I finally was down to 1 clownfish, I bought 7 from the same clutch to add. It sort of worked, but there definitely was a hierarchy among them. And that was with multiple anemones for them to have.


corey

 

[dwest]

I think the 15 is just right for one pair only.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

What would be the point though, just to have more fish in the tank? Thats like 2 clowns in a 7 gallon, its too cramped.