clowns stealing the anemone's food????

[toddc]

Hi gang,
thought I'd post up a question that the lfs has no clue about....
First a little background.
I have a 10gal setup with about 10lbs of LR and a couple of corals, a camel shrimp, a watchman goby, requiste crabs and snails, etc., and finally, a pair of percs and a sebae anemone.
The clowns are quite healthy, very active and the anemone hosts them just fine. In fact, the clowns are most always found wiggling around in the anemone unless they're eating.
Problem is that whenever I feed the anemone (been trying cut-up silver sides) the clowns will take the food out of his tentacles and leave it in the middle of the tank.
I'm afraid the anemone will eventually just not survive.
I've thought about trying to cover the anemone with some kind of container with small holes in it while feeding to keep the clowns off, but have yet to try it.
Any suggestions out there?
tia,
todd

 

[reefforbrains]

try spotfeeding with turkeybaster brine, clowns will have harder time removing the food. Anenome are capable of eating HUGE peices, but it is better to feed much smaller peices more often, this prevents the Anen from potentially regurgitating food and putting waste into the tank if agitated.

 

[hot883]

The clowns more times then not will FEED the anemone.
No flaming here but IMHO, you will be dealing with health issues almost from the beginning with that bio load in such a small tank.
Small tanks are harder to keep the water quality good and thats being stocked correctly. A pr. of clowns alone NEEDS atleast a 20 gallon and thats pushing it.
With that high of a bio load in a ten, the anemone will not last 30 days. Do you have MH for the anemone?
Again, not flaming you, just trying to help you out as someone has lied to ya down the line somewhere. Barry

 

[toddc]

Originally Posted by hot883
The clowns more times then not will FEED the anemone.
No flaming here but IMHO, you will be dealing with health issues almost from the beginning with that bio load in such a small tank.
Small tanks are harder to keep the water quality good and thats being stocked correctly. A pr. of clowns alone NEEDS atleast a 20 gallon and thats pushing it.
With that high of a bio load in a ten, the anemone will not last 30 days. Do you have MH for the anemone?
Again, not flaming you, just trying to help you out as someone has lied to ya down the line somewhere. Barry
Thanks for the input Barry, I guess I'm just lucky with the results so far...
The clowns and the anemone were introduced the same day, over 6 months ago. I guess the anemone passing the 30 day mark must be a fluke. :notsure:
The light is not MH, it's 96watts, PC
I also thought the clowns would feed the anemone, but that is clearly not the case.
Clearly, the anemone must be getting food from somewhere, but I haven't seen any growth in overall size and I never see him close up or spit anything out which seems to indicate that he's really not processing food....

 

[hot883]

Ok, looks like you might have enough light. Good to hear. Is it a good color? I personally did not have much luck with my anemone (bad advice from LFS) and have not attempted another. My clowns host my large featherduster.
I would watch the water quality closely and make sure you are doing frequent and regular water changes.
What foods are you feeding the anemone?

 

[toddc]

I've been trying to feed silver sides and krill, but like I mentioned, everything I feed, the clowns remove from the tentacles.........
his color is good, kinda milky light brown with very vibrant purple tips.