That's why frilly mushrooms are a good choice. They are
tuff, and can handle the abuse from the clowns, and they
don't move around like anemones.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets



Tristan wrote on 1/17/2007 10:44 AM:
Its farily common behavior for clowns without a anemone to do that. I
have seen mine host in clams, feather dusters, pulsing zenia,
toadstool leathers, any and all kinds of mushrooms. The only problem
is, often it will lead to the demise or severe beating of the coral or
critter due to the clows buffeting actions. My one clown got so bad at
buffeting corals and was destroying most every coral inthe process,
so I removed him from the tank and sent him packing. In an huors time
he managed to uproot and tear up over 2 dozen assorted shrooms, a huge
yellow toadstool leather, rip the crown up on 2 nice large feather
dusters and literally get sand strewn all over the tank from his
wallowing out holes in the sand bed.....Now the clown is in a 12 gal
nano cube......in someone elses house.

I am not a big fan of anemones, such as condylactus, BTA and Hatian
etc. So thats why I did not have a "so called" proper anemone for the
clowns, but then again they really do not have to have them either, as
I had one clown that did perfectly fine without any.


On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:33:30 -0500, that *other* annoying little troll
wrote:

I have a clownfish tha seems convinced that one my large hawaiian
feather dusters is some sort of funny looking anenome. She likes to swim
through the feathers of it's crown, and I have seen her dropping food to it.

At first the duster used to retract whenever the clown would swim though
it's crown, but now it seems quite used to it.

If you put your hand in the tank and try to move the rock the duster is
attached to, the clown will start nipping at your hand. If you don't put
your hand near the duster, she leaves your hand alone.

There are two dusters right next to each other, and she only does this
with one of them. This one particular duster seems to be HER duster. She
never does this with the other duster, which is maybe 3 inches ways
(close enough that the crowns touch) It's the only the female of my pair
that does this - the male seems "skeptical"

Anyone ever seen this sort of behavior before? Clownfish trying to host
with something that is non-cnidarian? I have heard of them hosting with
ricordias, mushrooms, frogspawn, etc, but never a duster worm!



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I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!