Carpet Nem Ate My Clownfish!!

[Reefbuds]

I woke up this morning very distraught. Last night for some reason or another my carpet anemone ate my 16 month old clownfish :( The clown and nem have been bonded for 2 months and hosting great. I've had this clownfish since the startup of my tank 17 months ago, this is very sad, I watched clown grow up. What happened and how can I prevent this in the future?!

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

I woke up this morning very distraught. Last night for some reason or another my carpet anemone ate my 16 month old clownfish :( The clown and nem have been bonded for 2 months and hosting great. I've had this clownfish since the startup of my tank 17 months ago, this is very sad, I watched clown grow up. What happened and how can I prevent this in the future?!

So sorry for your loss :(

Was anything wrong with the clownfish? Any abnormal behavior leading up to last night? Do you feed the anemone anything?

 

[Reefbuds]

No

So sorry for your loss :(

Was anything wrong with the clownfish? Any abnormal behavior leading up to last night? Do you feed the anemone anything?

Nothing out of the ordinary, clown had some ruffled fins from a spat with another tank mate but that was at least a week ago. I feed chopped shrimp to nem and had just fed 2 days ago at the most.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Get rid of the carpet. They are fish eaters... happens a lot, at least once a month I see one of these threads where someone's carpet ate a fish, clownfish aren't safe like you would think.

 

[dylana407]

What kind of carpet? I might buy it from you.

 

[Reefbuds]

I love the carpet, has always been my favorite. It is a blueish Haddoni and the clown hosting was a black and white occilarius. These arnt natural host in the wild, maybe this played a role? I also added a blizzard percula a few weeks ago to try and pair with my black and white. Maybe I can add another blizzard and see if they will pair and host the carpet. Percula arnt natural hosts either for this species of nem so I'm kind of sketchy about it now.

 

[Be102]

Get rid of the carpet. They are fish eaters... happens a lot, at least once a month I see one of these threads where someone's carpet ate a fish, clownfish aren't safe like you would think.

This 10000% . I also loved the anemone until he ate my fish. Then it just all went downhill. I’d say learn from experience that they aren’t necessarily always perfect.

 

[dylana407]

Seems like this happens more with haddoni.

 

[Reefbuds]

Get rid of the carpet. They are fish eaters... happens a lot, at least once a month I see one of these threads where someone's carpet ate a fish, clownfish aren't safe like you would think.

Ugh I really love him. I'm now looking into trading to the LFS for a different type of anemone, I want more than anything a pair of clownfish hosting s nem but I can't have the nem eating them. :/ specially a clownfish I've had for 16 months.. ugh.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Try a BTA... it's harder to get them to host clowns, but they are pretty much fish safe. Unless you have a very weak fish that's on death's doorstep, I haven't hard of them eating fish. Haddoni are really sticky, and aggressive. Anything touches it, it's going to try to eat it.

 

[Reefbuds]

Try a BTA... it's harder to get them to host clowns, but they are pretty much fish safe. Unless you have a very weak fish that's on death's doorstep, I haven't hard of them eating fish. Haddoni are really sticky, and aggressive. Anything touches it, it's going to try to eat it.

It's just so strange they have been great together for 2 months now and all the sudden last night he just eats her up man. I knew it was a fish eater as I've heard of this happening but I didn't expect it to eat my clown!! I have looked into BTA or sebae

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Get a natural symbiant and it won't happen...

 

[Reefbuds]

Get a natural symbiant and it won't happen...

That's what I was thinking, looks like the only viable option is a clarki or certain saddles, neither occi or percula are natural, I'm worried about my percula now.

 

[mibwb]

Sorry for your loss....A lifetime ago, I had a carpet nem host clowns never a problem. I fed the carpet shrimp by hand when I first got it. It never stung me, even when it would grab my hand while I fed it. A year later I got some clowns and after a month they were hosting the carpet. Then one day, the clowns took the shrimp from my hand and went directly to the carpet and gave it to the carpet. After that, I would toss the shrimp in and they fed the carpet.

 

[Postal]

Any pics of the carpet anemone?