Training Clowns to Host Anemones/Elephant Ears

[FionaFiona]

Anyone care to share tips on how u induce ur clowns to settle into an anemone or leather or elephant ear? (by settle down: I mean live in harmony with, wriggles happily on it).

Both my clowns (1 True, 1 Sabae) pays no attention to my elephant ear ( which I bought as a surrogate anemone ). I refrain from anemones becuz of the known time-bomb threat, and I know there are substitutes like elephant ears.

Before I bought this elephant ear from the LFS, I personally seen clowns wriggling happily on it, thats why I bought it (as a toy for my clowns).

Any inputs appreciated.

[chercm]

they will just naturally host by themselves

[jacobus]

i dunno if there's a confirmed method out there but most of the times must see ther clowns own personality, the easy going kind would host to anything ... and the picky ones .. you prob can guess.. also depends on the species ... in my experience ... common clowns ( ocellaris ) would be the easiest to host to most kinds of stuff, elephant ears, hammers, gonios, even zoos. but other species another story ... hope this gives you some help ... also ... you can try placing the coral in some sort of enclosed spaced ( betta box maybe ) put in the clown and let them get to know each other ... once you see that the clown is getting comfortable with hosting ... you can transfer then coral back into the tank and the clown is sure to follow ... unless it decides that there is a better host somewhere in ur tank ...

btw ... having 2 different species of clowns would hinder the host as when they get very aggressive once they host ... the 2 of ur clowns are prob having prob with each other and are hesitant of hosting ... thats what i think la ... had the same prob when i had 1 maroon and ocellaris ... only when the maroon up lorry than the other one hosted .. ( i had quite a few anemones hoping that both would host )

[fongster]

i have a true percula that used to hang near the top right side of the tank and not swim about much, however when i introduced another smaller true percula, he/she decided to start to swim around and into my hammer, maybe this may help, they may not decide to host until they are thinking about reproducing

anyway not all anemone is suitable for them, in the wild, they host the magnifica or something like that, can be a few metres across, so not suitable for our tanks..

[blueheaven]

I'm not that sure about elephant ears

They'll probably eat up the clownfish

[gerrard_boon]

why dun u try bubbles or hammers...clowns seems to take to them easier...

[Rex Ng]

bubble and hammer will sting the fish

[gerrard_boon]

my clown is hosting a bubbles...n i think many reefers has clowns that host hammars...

[ervine]

mine never used to host in the hammer, although both have been in the tank for ages... then suddenly one day the clown just decided to do so and he's never left there since...

So not too sure if it's possible to train them to host...

[cjh]

I'm not that sure about elephant ears

They'll probably eat up the clownfish

yup.. they will eat the clown... thats what they do in the wild...

[Alvin Tan]

the elephant ear will swallow the clowns...

[alien07]

let nature take its own course.

[John Henry]

I agree with what everyone said above: The clowns probably won't (or shouldn't) host in the corals you mentioned. (Although you can never be sure as clowns are strange fish and will host in many strange things, including powerheads, LPS, cleaner magnets and old mop heads. JK about the mop heads...)

But there are some tricks to help 'nature take its own course' a little quicker. You can shine a flashlight on the new (let's say) anemone at night, when all the other lights are off. It makes the anemone stand out like it's on stage, and timid clowns will often go check it out. This can lead to them hosting in it, assuming they're compatible species. It worked for my Two-band and the Sebae anemone.

I've also heard of people who tape a picture of a similar clownfish on the outside of the tank near the anemone. Supposedly, the clown sees the other clown's picture near the anemone and copies it. Hard to believe, lol, but have heard it really works.

[dumdum]

just let them find a host themselves

my pair of false clown are hosting themselves on my frogspawn ..lol

[ywng85]

Bear in mind goniopora can't host a clownfish. It'll die.

[jervismun]

Mine is definitely the easy going personality