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New Nem + Clown tank: Guidance

thesassyindian

thesassyindian

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For folks who have a nem only, plus clown tank:
  1. What is the minimum tank size?
  2. How much more maintenance is it?
  3. Does it also need Alk/Ca/Mg dosing?
  4. How often do you do you water changes?
  5. Are water changes only enough to maintain the tank?
Thanks!
Yash
 
My responses, your mileage may vary.

- The smallest I’ve had clowns and nems long term was a 35 gal, but did have a large nem covered rock with clowns happily in a 20 g temporary tank for a couple of months. Most people would probably not recommend something that small, but I feel I could have kept that temp tank going long term with a decent hob skimmer.
- Maintenance was pretty basic.
- I never dosed my nem softy tank
- Normal, every other week water changes
 
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1. You can probably go pretty small, as clowns will absolutely not stray very far from the anemone. The bigger question is how big will the anemone grow. And if you want to keep any other fish or corals in the tank.
2. If you're talking something simple like a RBTA, I would say it's about as simple as a soft coral tank. Now if it's an anemone like a carpet, haddoni, ritteri, magnifica (etc) then I've heard those are more difficult to keep, I really don't have any experience with them though.
3. Zero dosing necessary, they don't make skeletons, hence don't use it up. Coraline algae is about the only thing that I can think off that would consume calcium and alkalinity.
4. Not very often, as I said, soft coral tank. It really depends on what you feed the tank, if you overfeed the clowns you may want to do more water changes, but if it's just a couple clowns water changes should be extremely minimal
5. I'd say yeah, water changes are to maintain the tank.
 
I have an RBTA hosting a pair of clown on IM 20 gallon AIO. I have it since the beginning of 2020. I don’t dose. I test my water every two weeks and manual dose on rare occasion only if necessary. Water change every two weeks or three weeks.
 
I had a pair of baby clowns for 1 year in a 6 gal at my work. No BTA. Spare Softies from home tank. Just did 2 gal water changes when needed. Broke it down when covid forced us to remote work.
 
I think you could keep a pair of ocellaris or percs in a 5-10g tank. They are a very "present" yet inactive fish. They don't hide in holes like some fish, but at the same time, they aren't a fish that needs a lot of space to swim all over the place. They tend to find their "spot" and then basically hover around that spot all day every day.

In my mind its less about the clownfish and more about the anemone. A bubble tip anemone is easy -- but not something they naturally host in. They naturally host in gigantic anemones that would need a huge tank :)
 
My mom kept a pair of clowns in her fluval 13.5 for 4 years until the small one disappeared a couple months ago. The nem was happy too, but it stung everything.
 
your 13.5G is enough to keep nems + pair of occs. When choosing clowns, don't forget that occs vs maroons are very different size wise when grown.

My most successful nem tank is my matured 13.5G with nearly 0 WC.

If you have babies clowns, then you can get as small as 3G to serve as a nursery. Then move to a larger tank when the fish grows. The key to nem keeping is light... they don't require much param wise. I have found through painful first hand that lower nitrates is preferred, contrary to what others advise, in case this helps...
 
Thank you all for your guidance!!

Without going into to the specifics, unfortunately I'm going to have to shelve this idea before it even materializes.
Hopefully I can revisit it later this year/or in early 2022.
 
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you sure...? 2.5G possibility... ;)

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