Neptune Aquatics

First fish - pair of clowns?

I've got a pair of plain Jane ocellaris for the new tank which the larger dominant of the two began hosting a GBTA after about a week. Also have had true perculas in a tank with a BTA for over a year without even a look from the clown. I would say anything short of throwing them into a small container together, pretty much forcing them to host. It really is a hit or miss.
 
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Neptunes couldn't order singles of the variety of clownfish I wanted, so I ordered my naked and midnight from the coral reef tn. My snow onyx and black ice came from neptunes, however( I think neptunes labeled the black ice wrong, I think it is just a black snowflake. Edit: added a more recent pic of my snowflake and snow onyx
 

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Thanks, how was your experience with Coral Reef TN and how were the fish? They have a ton of bonded pairs and we are strongly considering getting a pair from them. I'll TTM regardless, but were your fish healthy and disease free?
 
As a side note, if you don't plan on getting Acropora, get a yellow clown goby! They are very tiny and kind of cute, plus they have great personalities. They will destroy Acropora though. Just bought a second one to try to pair with the one in my girlfriends tank. Please don't mind the algae in the pic, had to learn about curing rock the wrong way, still dealing with phosphate issues 6 months later, but everything grows great!
 

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I had a good experience with the coral reef tn, good price on fish, but shipping was expensive. I've heard that there is no point paying the premium for bonded or mated pairs, most clowns will pair up on their own
 
Thanks again, that is good to know. Some of the pairs we are looking at are like $7 more than buying singles, but I'll definitely look up and back to find two we like (regardless if they are paired or singles).
 
Definitely doing WYSIWYG given the significant variations in patterns for what are identified as the same variant. My wife and daughter are going to go over the pictures this weekend. I have my list but am not sharing to keep it unbiased. This weekend I will be gearing up the QT tanks to get the water temps stable - just in case. Just planning on running air stone(s), some PVC pipe to hide in, and continue doing water changes (close monitoring of ammonia) after the TTM cycle. I am not going to add an HOB filter to a tank after TTM during the observation stage, otherwise I would effectively have to come up with a "cycled" QT tank as well.

Seem reasonable?
 
my yellow clown goby doesnt touch acros. i have had 2 in the past same thing they never touch them. i have read that they only destroy them if there is a pair so it is ok to get one? because they lay their eggs on the acros or something
 
I had Maroon Clowns in my old 210 and they were fantastic, full of character. The female I had for ~ 9 years, spawned many, many times. I tried hatching but boy is that hard work!
They are quite territorial, and like to do their own aquascaping too, but great fish IMO.
 
Maroons get big don't they, like 6"?

Just checked nitrite and it is down to 1 ppm (from > 5 ppm Wednesday evening), as expected, ammonia still at 0. Getting close and my lights are still like 2 weeks away.

I may be hitting Vincent up for that loaner light and a speck of coral to inaugurate the tank while we have fish in QT.:D

Big water change on the horizon.
 
IMO it's more interesting to mix up your clown pair, in terms of color and personality. My misbar oscellaris is docile and eats anything like a pig, while the Darwin bites me at every opportunity, has refused pellets completely for years, and even tries to "herd" the female back to their coral when she swims too far away.

Also recommend training them to a euphillia by putting at least one of them in a small container with the coral until they find each other. Once one of the fish learns to use a host, they'll teach the other. Besides the usual benefits of coral hosts over anemones, the other fish will also appreciate the clowns staying in a predictable corner of the tank.
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Nitrite down to 0.25 and nitrate down as well to 20 ppm. I have 100g of SW out in the garage ready and waiting for Nitrite to hit zero and another 50 RODI available I can mix up into SW if necessary. Tank/sump actual volume is roughly 180g. Should I mix up the RODI and swap all 150g at one time or just do the 100g?

Doing a quick mix on the 50g RODI has me a bit concerned about getting the salinity right. Though with nothing except bacteria in the tank, I anticipate it is likely safe to undershoot the salinity and add salt as necessary over a day or so to dial in the target number.

Thanks for the input on clown hosting. We all like the euphyllia corals, so we'll likely go that direction and hope to get the clowns hosted. Is that something we can consider adding early on to the tank? Maybe a torch for starters?
 
Thanks, I am targeting 10 dKH, we'll see how good I am at keeping it close to that...............

What do people run for temperature? I had mine at 80-81 F for the cycle to help bacteria growth. Thinking 77.0 or 77.5 + 0.5 for a final target temperature.
 
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Thanks, I am targeting 10 dKH, we'll see how good I am at keeping it close to that...............

What do people run for temperature? I had mine at 80-81 F for the cycle to help bacteria growth. Thinking 77.0 or 77.5 + 0.5 for a final target temperature.
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I'm keeping my tank at 77F, good idea to lower the temp until you get everything under control (if it's true that lower temps slow algae growth).

I recommend picking a salt mix with an alk close to your target (or vice versa!) and then sticking with the salt mix parameters from then on. Then you have less extra work to adjust your salt mix before adding it to your tank.
 
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