Lost Perc to Power Outage

[yacobito]

I am sad to say I have lost one of my false perc clowns to what I think was cold temperatures. My power went out yesterday morning from a storm that blew by. I went to work, thinking the power would come back on in an hour or so. I had to run to the store after work and ended up getting home around 8:00pm. I came home to find my power still off and the smaller of my two percs dead.
I had had him for ~7 months now, paired with another who had grown to be the dominate of the two. One of my feather dusters has since gone in his tube and hasn't come out yet. I hope he is ok. The temperaure is back up now and everyone else is doing fine so far as I can tell.
My question is, will my perc that is left alone be ok without a partner? Should I get a new friend for him/her? Let me know what you think. Thanks so much.

 

[coopersx]

Sorry to hear. That is so sad. That is why I do not want to pair fish. It would make me feel worse then the fish...who probably misses someone to irritate. How the fish really feels about it is anybodies geuss. I think that type of clown is not aggressive and another one can be added to the tank. You will have to research this. Those 2 may not pair up though.
What I have read is that you can put a few in a tank. One will eventually dominate and become the Female. The next largest fish will be male and pair up with the female. All the others will remain juveniles. If the female dies the paired male will probably turn into a female and the largest juvenile will move up the heirarchy.
Placing just one fish into the tank will not assure pairing. I would definetly put another one in there. The fish probably could care less...he'd really rather be in the wild. I still would do it because I would kinda feel bad if the fish have attached feelings to their mates like we do.
Take care, Wayne

 

[murph]

This may not make you feel any better coop. But fish do not have the higher brain function to feel things such as grief, love, are most likely not even aware of the passing of time and do not feel pain in the same manner as larger brained animals. This is why most species are quite capable of cannibalizing there own young without a second thought or out of the blue killing a tank mate they have been with for years.
Now the lower brain functions such as anger, fight or flight, territoriality. All aquarium keepers know that they are quite capable of feeling those but even those are driven primarily by instinct and not any kind of reasoning capabilities or emotion.

 

[teresaq1]

to answer the question, yes, you can add another clown, just be sure to buy one that is much smaller

 

[yacobito]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. So I can add another if I want to. The question I have is, do I need to add another for my current perc to thrive? Can clowns survive alone or do they need numbers to live longer?

 

[fishieness]

they can survive alone, but i have alwahs thought it cool to have a paire..... Im worried that if i try pariing my moroon it wont turn out well since she is more agressive than a false perc.