Suckling Clownfish

[jmeltzer]

I am pretty new to saltwater.
I have a fairly new tank, about 5 weeks old.
I have 2 false perc, one is hosting a sabae anem, and the other just started hosting a green BTA that was introduced to the tank last friday.
One thing I notice, which I find quite amusing is that the perc looks like it is nursing on the BTA. It takes a tip and sucks on it.
Is this normal behavior, or is my perc crazy? I have not seen this at all with the cloen in the sabea.

Attached is a pic of the suckling. :grinno:

[gomrjoe]

That is not crazy, it is actually quite common, a clowns relationship with its host anemone is quite a sight indeed. They will rub all over and sleep in it as well, they will also pick at its mouth, and if you are lucky, they sometimes will feed it, I saw this once, truly amazing!

If you don't mind me asking and commenting, did you say that you were new to saltwater and that your tank has only been up for 5 weeks?? 5 Weeks is pretty new, especially to be introducing anemones. Not trying to scare you or anything, we welcome all newcomers, but nems are quite sensative and ideally should be introduced to an established tank. Just keep an eye on it and monitor your water params regularly, at least once a week, if not more since it is a new setup. Anemones are particularly sensative to Nitrates. The last thing you want is a nem to nuke your tank, not a pretty thing.

What are you feeding them?

Enjoy the clown and the anemones, they can be a lot of fun to watch. mine are!

[jmeltzer]

yeah, it has been up for 5 weeks. Although I am a new salty, I have been keeping cichlids for years. I felt it was time to up the ante a bit and get into salt. :grinyes:
I have been doing a TON of reading on this site and others and I have learned quite a bit from everyone's experiences. I have also spent hours at my LPS talking with the owner who specializes in SW.
My water params have been excellent thus far, and I have been doing regular water changes. My sabae has almost doubled in size since I got it.

I have been feeding both of my anems frozen krill cubes.
Both seem to be eating well, and one of my clowns is feeding the sabae.:dance2:

I will be posting some pics of my tank. I thnk I figured out my camera and I can get some decent pics.

[salty420]

mine sucks on my rbta all the time, she seems to do it to keep from getting blown out of it from the flow in the tank. i was actually wondering if that was normal myself! anywho looks like your bta is really bleached, hows your lighting and/or the lighting where it came from?

[jmeltzer]

yeah, the BTA is a bit bleached. lighting in the LFS was not all that great.
The fist night I got it, the BTA worked its way into a cave, and spent a few nights there. I finally decided to move the aquscaping around and turned one of the rocks around, and the bta has not moved since.

Color also seems to be coming back. Realize that I will have this BTA 1 week tomorrow.
It is eating regularly, and seems to like where it is, so color should be returning very soon.

My sabae was very bleached when I got it also, now it is beige. I shoud just be a matter of time to get some color back.

[salty420]

glad to hear it. good luck with it :)

[gomrjoe]

Sounds good, keep it up!

Very similar to my BTA experience. I rescued a BTA from a friends tank that he had let his tank go, severely. His BTA split and I took the clone. The clone is now settled into a rock at the bottom of my tank and is getting its color back. BTA's are pretty tough as far as anemones go, if you take care of them they can be rewarding.

Glad to hear that you are on your way to saving a nem, lord knows in this hobby we need to hear that now and then, to often we read about nems biting the dust.

Good luck!