Neptune Aquatics

More than 2 Clownfish in 1 tank

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I know there's some good knowledge in this club about clownfish & the captive propogated ones. I see the babies @ LFS like Neputnes all happily co-minging and wondering if getting 4 would work out in a large tank- like a 180? If there were say 2 different anenmomes or frogspawns so they could host, would you end up with 2 couples of 2 that could co-exist peacefully? Might 2 pair up and lay eggs. Maybe some are regular oscellarous & 2 could be picasso, snoflake, black ice. I think it would be cool to have more than 2 in a large tank but wouldn't want to try it, if it wouldn't work in the long term. thoughts?
 
It really depends on which pair is more dominant. The dominant pair will hog everything but they will exist together with a few skirmish here and there.
 
I think getting juveniles (and if possible from the same clutch) it's possible. Although different species may be tricky. I'm going to try 6 black ice for my next fish purchase along with a magnifica anemone.

Robin (Fingerwrinkles) would be good to ask.
 
I saw one suggestion which was to get one larger juvenille and a bunch of smaller juveniles (probably from the same clutch). Introduce them to the tank at the same time. The larger juvenile would be dominant and become female. That way you end up with a dominant female not closely related to the males. Adding additional juvenile clownfish is possible once you have a female if she doesn't feel her "harem" is too large. Adding additional female clownfish--that's where you have problems. You don't want two female clownfish fighting over territory.

I seem to recall that in Jeremy's long tank journey thread that they planned to keep clownfish at opposite ends of the tank. The clowns are territorial homebodies (Finding Nemo notwithstanding) such that they would never encounter each other in the very long tank. It might even depend on the shape of your tank not the volume whether it's possible to keep different types of clowns in the same tank.
 
I thinh 2 will mate and if the other 2 stay as small males it might work. I have seen tanks with multiple clowns fish before. they may just split your large tank up.
 
Hey guys ... I believe the ones at Neptunes did all come from the same clutch (or one clutch removed), or at least the same parents (I can state this definitively for the Darwins). Having more than one pair in a 180 should be fine, especially if you get percs or ocellaris that have been growing up together as these species are highly social. Whenever I've tried to force bonding by putting pairs in cubes next to one another, the pairs tend to hang out on opposite sides of the divider next to each other as they all want to be together. This behavior will certainly evolve as they grow, but you certainly can make it work. Mona's (Mobert) arrangement will give you a long term view of how they can look in the future as all of hers came from a single clutch I had a few years ago.

One other thought ... I'd never put only 3 togther and would stick with odd numbers if you're hoping to do multiple fish in the mid single digit range (i.e. 5/7/9). Once you get to 10 or more you can add however many you like, but at the smaller numbers I've had good luck with odd numbers.
 
I would give credence to what Robin and others are saying, but a little anecdote:

The male of my broodstock ocellaris pair came from a local reefer who put 4 juvies in his 120g tank. After some time, two of them paired up and began bullying the others. They killed the 4th one, and harassed the 3rd to the point where he wasn't eating, had torn fins, and lost almost all coloration before I adopted him.

If you follow Robin's advice, your chances of successfully keeping multiple clowns in the 180g are significantly greater, but some fish, like people, are just jerks. :bigsmile:
 
hi i have 3 different kinds of clowns that are in my 135 gal.when i lost four out of five of my wide band clowns ..i kind of took me out of my tank,so i mixed 3fish tanks in to one.a pair of picasso gsm,picasso clarkii, one wide band.. all fish live just find,and gsm even lay eggs...
 
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