Clownfish and anemones

Hi. We've had our 55 gallon tank for about 8 months now. We have 3 (Nemo) Clownfish in our tank along with various others and 2 Anemones. One bubbletip and one Sabae..the first 2 clowns we've had for months but the third we've only had about a week. My husbamd bought it because it was in a bubbletip in the store and he was hoping it would teach our other two to get in one as well. They competely ignored both anemones until we put him in there. After a couple of hours he had both of them attracted to the Sebae but it would not eat anything. We figured that was normal because it took the first 2 a couple of days to start eating. So we waited. Now all three fish stay in that anemone and refuse to eat anything at all. We have tried frozen brine(which the first 2 before devoured at any given time and would eat out of your hand) as well as other frozen shrimp and flakes. No luck. All they do is sit in the anemone. We are afraid that they are going to die if they don't start eating again. The new fish has not eaten one bite of anything since we put him in there a week ago. Like I said the first two were eating just fine but now refuse all foods. Is there anything we can do to get them to eat again?

 

HI mhardigree - Welcome to FishLore!

My clowns rarely venture far (no more than 1 foot or so) from their anemones so that means I have to target feed them sort of. They are not quite as aggressive at feeding time as the other fish so I distract the main group of fish by putting in food on one side of the tank then quickly drop in food right in front of the clownfish and they eat well. Turning off the powerheads before hand makes it easier to get the food in front of them.

Assuming your water parameters are in good shape (can you post the numbers?) and assuming that they didn't catch any sort of illness from the new fish you introduced I would try different foods. But first I'd rule out that it isn't any water quality issues by testing and posting the results of ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, sg, temp, etc.

I would suggest trying Rod's foods and new life spectrum foods. I feed the new life spectrum thera-A with garlic, 1 mm sized pellets and they really go after it. I would feed the Rod's foods more often but gets kind of expensive so it's more just a few times per week for the thawed foods with the NLS pellets being the main part of their diet.

I would also watch for any signs of illness/disease and be ready to treat them with a dip/bath or qt.

 

Our water is fine. All the parameters are where they are supposed to be..Ph stays around 8.2 Ammonia is always in the 0 range..Nitrites are always in the 0 range and Nitrates stay between 10 and 20. We put a garlic extract in with the food all the time as well. I tried target feeding them last night with frozen brine but they ran away from me. They used to attack my hand when I fed them like this. All they seem to care about is the anemone. I'm not sure what else to do other than take them away from the anemone by putting them in another tank until they start eating again.

 

I would just keep trying every few hours with very small bits of food to see if they will start to eat.

If you can get out to your local fish store today/tomorrow see if you can pick up some Rod's foods - really good stuff with lots of variety in it and you can use it to feed your anemones too. Here is their store locator:

Maybe that will help get the clowns eating.

 

Thanks...we took them out of the main tank and put them in a QT tank just incase they are sick and we need to treat them. As far as I know they still have not eaten anything. Hopefully they will snap out of it soon or we will be buying new clownfish soon..