Clown hosting in Wellsophyllia

[the curious]

I have an ocellaris clown, that was given to me 4 years ago, and had been kept by the previous owner for 10+ years. I just purchased a wellsophyllia from Premier a couple months ago, and now this lil booger has decided he wants to host in it. :boo:

I decided to go back to Premier, and purchase a RBTA, in an attempt to convince the clown that there are better options than my open brain. I even went as far as to catch lil nemo, and put him and the nem in a confined container, with plenty of flow, 'floating' at the top of my tank.

I left them in confinement for a little over a week...to no avail. I let them both back out a few nights ago, and of course, he has gone back to hosting in the wellso. I don't exactly want to get rid of him, but it is looking like that might be my next step.

I figured I would post about it, and see if anyone had any other ideas, if not...this lil guy might end up on the free stuff forum. :doh:

 

[brandonmason]

When you had him in the container did you bump him into the nem?

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[the curious]

Yeah, I tried that a couple times. I even blocked off part of the container, so that he had a very small amount of room to swim. This forced him to 'rub' into the nem when he turned around. I only left it like that for a couple hours though. I didn't wanna go stressing him out too much.

 

[jennm]

For clarity - the coral is the host, not the clown.

Is the coral suffering? If so, then intervention is advised.

If it's not suffering - and many corals will get accustomed to clowns 'loving on' them, then let it be.

The clown may or may not migrate to the anemone. IMO it's not a good idea to try to force it.

A bubble anemone is not that clown's natural host any more than the coral is. In the wild, A. ocellaris is hosted by carpet anemones. Try to force it can result in the clown being eaten by the anemone.

Jenn

 

[the curious]

Thank you for your input, Jenn. I have always highly respected your opinion.

I do believe that the time has come to remove the clown from my system, as the coral is showing signs of stress, from the 'loving'.

It is not the action that I really want to take, but that is part of this hobby. We cannot control living creatures, we simply have to observe and use our best judgement to do what is best for our hand-picked ecosystems.

 

[jennm]

That or remove the coral - for a little while, and see if the clown relocates. Then reintroduce the coral. It's a crap-shoot whether the clown then returns to the coral or not... but worth a try to see if you can keep both.

Jenn