Bad Mommy!

[calvertbill]

On November 1st I bought a pair of large Clarkiis (the female is almost 5"). At the same time I got them a Purple Carpet. The Clowns immediately started enthusiastically diving into all Anemone maintenance duties.
The female especially took over Krill and silverside feeding duties. All seemed well with the world. I had been told that full MHs might be too much at first for deep water purples, so I started it out under PCs, intending to move them into the big tank later.
Then the anemone died. It just wasted away and started decomposing.
I moved the clowns to the big tank in early January and bought them a new purple last week. Once again the Clarkiis dove into the task of swimming up to my hand and grabbing silversides to feed the purple.
I started watching her feed it and laughed because her enthusiasm was such that she kept moving the food fish over and over. She'd feed it, swim away and then come back to replace it. By this time what started out as a 1 1/2" fish would be a 1/4" scrap. The anemone never ate a single one!
I finally took two silversides and using a pair of tongs I pushed the food into the anemone's craw. The female clown, perhaps upset that I took her job away, dove into the anemone's mouth and retrieved the silversides. She them gave them back by putting the food UNDER the anemone!
The purple has still gone a week without eating, all because of it's stupid host!!!!
Any ideas?

 

[o2ngk]

Originally Posted by Calvertbill
http:///forum/post/2468680
On November 1st I bought a pair of large Clarkiis (the female is almost 5"). At the same time I got them a Purple Carpet. The Clowns immediately started enthusiastically diving into all Anemone maintenance duties.
The female especially took over Krill and silverside feeding duties. All seemed well with the world. I had been told that full MHs might be too much at first for deep water purples, so I started it out under PCs, intending to move them into the big tank later.
Then the anemone died. It just wasted away and started decomposing.
I moved the clowns to the big tank in early January and bought them a new purple last week. Once again the Clarkiis dove into the task of swimming up to my hand and grabbing silversides to feed the purple.
I started watching her feed it and laughed because her enthusiasm was such that she kept moving the food fish over and over. She'd feed it, swim away and then come back to replace it. By this time what started out as a 1 1/2" fish would be a 1/4" scrap. The anemone never ate a single one!
I finally took two silversides and using a pair of tongs I pushed the food into the anemone's craw. The female clown, perhaps upset that I took her job away, dove into the anemone's mouth and retrieved the silversides. She them gave them back by putting the food UNDER the anemone!
The purple has still gone a week without eating, all because of it's stupid host!!!!
Any ideas?
Good observation and as I posted before the behavior of clown feeding the anenome is just hard to believe. At first I tought that was true. The clown is after the food and the only reason the clown bring the food to the anenome is because the clown is taking the food "to go" and eat it at home.
So when you try to feed the anenome directly, the clown will find it and pull it out again .. uhh .. what a frustration .. I understand and there is no easy way to fix this.
What I do is temporary guard the anenome from the clown until the food is completely disappear/not visible into the anenome .. once you did this make sure you feed your clown or otherwise he will dig to the mouth and pull the food again.
Be patient .. my anenome took a good 5 minutes before it swallow the entire silverside.

 

[lexluethar]

I've also had to over feed my clowns at times to get them to not be as aggressive in taking food away from the anemone. Feed the clowns first, then the anemone. Even in this order as o2 said, you will have to guard the food until the anemone has a good grasp on it, or it fully engulfs the food.
Also try some other things like raw shrimp if its not attaching to the stuff you are giving it.

 

[1journeyman]

An anemone, especially a healthy one, should get the bulk of it's food from photosynthesis.