Won't host

[Homebrewer]

doesn't always work, but you can tape a picture of an anemone (that looks similar to yours) hosting a clown to the side of the tank.
i did this with one of my older tanks and it worked within a few hours. doesn't hurt to try

+1 on this technique, it worked for me. This topic came up in another thread and I suggested the OP try this. I think the biggest plus to this method, as opposed to many in-tank interventions, is that there is almost zero risk in trying this. The worst that can happen is nothing!

 

[Reef-Tank]

Good idea!

 

[davocean]

I keep seeing people place blame on captive bred clowns and lack of instinct, but this is not the case.

The instinct is still very much there, so much so that the clowns usually immediately recognize and accept host when we GIVE THEM THE ANEMONE THEY WOULD BE FOUND IN THE WILD.

Take those same clowns that have refused BTA and give them a natural match host and they pretty much always dive right on in immediately.

People set on keeping a mismatch of clowns to anemone's have to rely on patience or tricks to entice them.

This has become much too obvious to keep parroting the same misinformation, it would take many generations to breed out their natural instinct.

 

[Homebrewer]

@davocean while I agree with your points about correct matching and instinct, in my opinion, the idea behind captive bred fish losing some of their behavioral traits is not exactly misinformation. There is some research to this effect. A research paper published by the National Academy of Sciences says the following: "...the hatchery environment during early life stages induces significant physiological and behavioral changes that may ultimately reduce the fitness of hatchery-born fish." (https://www.pnas.org/content/114/49/12964). This quote also points to two other papers that discuss fitness changes in hatchery-born fish. Mind you, most of this research is done on salmon and not clowns and anemones, and it's endpoint is to measure fitness, not a symbiotic relationship; but the point is that there can be changes in captive-bred fish over generations, as you mentioned.

I want you to know that I respect your opinion and again, I want you to know that I 100% agree that the right clown should be paired with the right nem for very obvious reasons. In many ways, we are trying to replicate nature, so why fight that?... right???

I aim only to make the point that there is peer-reviewed literature in nationally-published journals that do indicate there can be behavioral changes in captive bred fish, and so in my opinion, some of these changes could indeed occur in clownfish.

 

[Headhunter]

Mine found it pretty quickly...FWIW, just posted this update yesterday.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/another-clownfish-anemone-question.443947/#post-5647965

 

[Tony757]

Hey everyone! I put my clown and anemone in a strainer and its been about 2 days the clownfish sits on the other side of the strainer and wants nothing to with the nem, how long should i keep them together before i just give up and let them be? the nem was in my tank for three month with the clowns before i put then in the strainer.

Yeaa I’ll try that along with I’m gonna keep feeding the anemone mysis so that the clown will keep eating mysis from it and maybe recognize it’s a nem