Adding more clowns

hummer · #1 02-07-2007, 04:51 PM

Hi,
I have two (orange/white) tank bred percula clowns in my 80 gallon tank and was wondering if there is a big risk adding two more tank bred percula clowns? My current clowns are about 2 1/2 - 3 inches. The ones I want to add in are smaller. Maybe 1 1/2 - 2 inches. I heard mixing clowns are bad but I've added Black/White percula clowns before and they got along just fine. I lost them, and a few others, to a slight disaster though.

Other tank inhabitants:
Blue Tang ( about 4-5 inches )
Yellow Goby
Spotted Cardinalfish
6 line wrasse

Thanks for any help.

Ruth · #2 02-07-2007, 05:04 PM

I just tried this yesterday - added 2 small false perc. to a 190g that has a large gold stripe maroon clown. There are also 3 anemones in this tank and the GSM always hung out in the 2 RBTA's that are located at one end of the tank. A large sebae anemone is at the other end of the tank and that is where I added the 2 small percs to. The GSM made a b-line to them and immediately started to beat the hell out of them making visible bite marks on them. I waited for maybe an hour and decided the 2 little guys were just going to be killed so I removed them and put them into a 10g nano for now until I decide what to do with them. FWIW the only other fish in this 190 are a large blonde naso tang and a mandarin so definately not a full tank by any means.

Myanth · #3 02-07-2007, 05:09 PM

Try floating them in a breeding tank for a while. Maybe they'll be friends. I added one small perc to my two, two year olds and they get along fine. He's not allowed in on the breeding but hey, what can you expect?

ponokareefer · #4 02-07-2007, 05:53 PM

I had one false percula clown, tank raised, and added a second one. They didn't get along for quite a while, the one originally in the tank chasing the other one away. After a while, they tolerated each other, and then, their coloration changed to match each other identically. Really weird. I then added 2 cinnamen clowns, and the 2 false percula's never left each other's side. The false percula's chased the cinnamon's away from their home(frogspawn) for a while, but then stopped after a few weeks. Now, the 2 cinnamon's don't get along, but the rest all are fine.

Ryan