Multiple Clowns

[Wrigley&Ivy17]

I know many people have different opinions on this subject but I'll ask anyway. I have an office tank with two black and white ocellaris clowns in it. I've posted before but my office is cheap and turns the air off on the weekends. Tank is always hot, I tried a fan..too cold. sigh. I'm over it. I'm bringing the tank and clownfish home. I have a 50 gallon cube with two ocellaris (non black and white in it already). The black and white fish are small. Anyone had success with more than one pair in a tank? I can always leave them in the work tank at home but thought I would ask.

 

[Uncle99]

I have never had success whenever there’s two females.
Any 3/4” or less likely have not started to change to female.
Even this size may not be accepted into the established pair.

 

[Sarcazian]

I have had 3 clowns in mine for about 5 months now - 2 regular percs and one darwin (still a perc). The Darwin is a little bit bigger at maybe 1.75" (pure guess...) with the runner ups 1.50 to 1.00".

The smallest hosted in my 4-4.5" nem in a couple of days and protected it furiously. Now all three are in and out of the nem (rainbow BTA I believe).

As Uncle said, they probably have not changed to a female and that may explain why they still all hang out and swim in a school together. Everyone has cautioned me that at some point one will be killed off.

The tank sits next to my desk that I am tethered to 12 hours a day... no aggression unless you count them and the cleaner shrimp attacking me for food when I pass by. So, if / when I see that the smallest will get moved to the full-time QT tank or maybe into the WB 28.2 that I am building out. Current tank is an Evo 13.5.

 

[Wrigley&Ivy17]

Thank you! I like them so I'll just leave them in their own tank at home. What's one more

 

[Clown Force]

I just had a female Maroon Gold Stripe die after being paired for 17 yrs. I added 24 juveniles last week and am hoping 15 survive and one pairs up with the current adult. So far so good. The resident male has not been too aggressive and I find that any aggression is instigated amongst the juveniles. About 15 have formed a colony in one of my RBTA’s and the rest have staked out claims in the rock work. I am not quite a week into the experiment but I am hopeful since I tried this before a few years ago with the mated pair and it did not end well thanks to the female.

Current set up: 120 Gal, 5 large RBTA’s, lots of rock work, (2) purple tang green chromis.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I have never tried it but when I was watching the BRS videos on their clown harem, they said if you want to have multiple clowns in a tank, you should add all of them at the same time, they should all look similar to reduce aggression, etc. I would recommend going watch some of those videos if you’re interested in learning more about it but those were some of the takeaways I got from it

 

[Clown Force]

I have never tried it but when I was watching the BRS videos on their clown harem, they said if you want to have multiple clowns in a tank, you should add all of them at the same time, they should all look similar to reduce aggression, etc. I would recommend going watch some of those videos if you’re interested in learning more about it but those were some of the takeaways I got from it

Thank you, very informative. The good news is that the aggression amongst the juveniles seemed to subside after a couple of weeks. The unknown I will be dealing with is the resident mature male (soon to be female???). Also, good tips about heavy feeding to reduce aggression which I can get away with since I have a large refugium with Cheto and a Kessil similar to their set up.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Thank you, very informative. The good news is that the aggression amongst the juveniles seemed to subside after a couple of weeks. The unknown I will be dealing with is the resident mature male (soon to be female???). Also, good tips about heavy feeding to reduce aggression which I can get away with since I have a large refugium with Cheto and a Kessil similar to their set up.

Good luck!

 

[Appoloreefer]

I know many people have different opinions on this subject but I'll ask anyway. I have an office tank with two black and white ocellaris clowns in it. I've posted before but my office is cheap and turns the air off on the weekends. Tank is always hot, I tried a fan..too cold. sigh. I'm over it. I'm bringing the tank and clownfish home. I have a 50 gallon cube with two ocellaris (non black and white in it already). The black and white fish are small. Anyone had success with more than one pair in a tank? I can always leave them in the work tank at home but thought I would ask.

I have read on Liveaquaria that Oscellaris clowns can be mixed with other Ocellaris clowns and you can have several pairs as long as they are the same from what other sites have suggested.

 

[chizerbunoi]

I had 3 different complex pairs that were separated for the first two years by dividers. Actually when juveniles they can live peacefully until they pair up to mate.

Then introduced together for a year. But after that I had to separate them. They each had their own anemones and space. Unfortunately they wanted full dominance. This is a 55 gal.

now down to just 3 false percs.