Clown

[clowninround]

I ended up taking the maroon clownfish back (the baby one) and when I did they told me I could try some percs. He had 3 of them in with a gold striped maroon in the display tank. I have seen a picture of them before but I was wondering if this is a hit and miss type thing. I don't want to disrupt the balance in my tank.

[electrikat]

Are you talking about the percs or the maroon/gold, or are you talking about getting both?

[BDAWG]

I've heard it's not a good idea to mix different species of clownfish. Is this true, or was I misguided?

[electrikat]

Depends on which kind and how big the tank is. Maroons are notorious for being very aggressive. You can't even buy two unless you know they are a mated pair.

[clowninround]

Yeah thats what I thought. I have a maroon clown and I want more clowns...my clown is agressive, so I am assuming this is out.

[BDAWG]

I have 2 percs., what can be mixed with them? Just out of curiousity, I'm not planning on doing it.

[Phyl]

I have a maroon and a perc. They seem to get along swimmingly. My maroon is pretty big and not at all agressive. The perc is probably still male (but really... who knows?!) as he was the male in a mated pair before his beau took to swimming belly up.

[clowninround]

wow, I really want more than one clown I just don't know how my maroon will react. I had a tang once (lavendar, in my gallery) that the clown was biting whenever he got in his space, I eventually took the tang back because of it. But he is great with everybody else.

[Phyl]

I wonder how much size and body shape play into it. My maroon is head and tails bigger than my perc (and then some, probably). Interacts more with my yellow tang than anything else (they're just about the same size but even with the yellow she's more liked to be pushed around than to push around). So far she's the last addition to the tank, but I'm just about to buy my White Cheek so we'll see what happens then!

I put my fingers in the tank last night as I was getting ready to feed the tank and my maroon actually came over and "nipped" at my finger. Not in a "I want to hurt you" sort of way, more in a "hey is that food I smell" sort of way. It was pretty cute. My littler fish do that all the time but this was the first time that my maroon had gotten so close to my hand. Makes me want to find something to hand feed her!

[clowninround]

See I am wondering that myself, because you are the third person I have seen or heard of having percs with maroons.

Awww thats cute. My Naso is always in the way to get her seaweed clip and she doesn't seem to mind at all that I am touching her. That just blows my mind.

[MT79]

One thing to keep in mind w/ Maroon clowns (premnas), they get upto 6 inches long and aggression increases with size and maturity. They can get pretty nasty- they have even been known to chase off large triggers 8O Mine doesn't hesitate to attack me

[ZoozFishMaster]

I agree totally with MT79. The larger the maroon clown, the meaner it is. Thinking I had enought room, I tried 2 percs and a gold striped maroon in my 180 g. All about the same size (maybe an 1 1/2 - 2 inch in size). Everytime a perc was anywhere near the maroon, it got chased away. After realizing how mean the maroon clown was I removed the percs. I don't know if the maroon would have necessarily killed the percs, or even damaged them for that matter, but i didn't want to chance it.
If you want to try to keep 2 species together, I have heard that some have been successful in mixing and matching clarkiis, percs, and skunk clowns.
Or you could just mix oscellaris and percs; they will definitely get along. HTH

[mle421]

my perc bit me last night too, i was taking out my powerhead (which oddly enough it is in love with) and it nipped me like 5 times!