Good Morning to all,
I presently have two reef tanks, a 45 gal and a 37 gal. I have had the 45 gallon for 5 years now with a Bi Color Angel and a Maroon clown fish (only fish in the tank). They have been together now for 4 years. I set up the 37 as a AOI in February of this year and have 2 ocellaris clowns, a yellow watchman gobie and pistol shrimp. I just purchased a 75 gallon tank to replace the two tanks and I am now wondering if I am going to need to re-home some of my fish due to compatibility. The Maroon is 4-5 inches and the ocellaris (mated pair) are 2 inches for the female and 1 inch for the male.
I would love to keep them all but I owe it to them not to put them in harms way.
Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
From my understanding, and reading, maroon clowns are very aggressive. Also hear that different types of clownfish will not work together. That is just from my reading, I have no personnel experience. I think for it to work you would need to have a bigger tank.
Ill put it to you like this, I would keep the ones you want most. The reason I say that is because I had the same thing happen. 2 occ clowns in a hospital 10 tank and a Fire clown in my 30. I added the 2 occ's a week before I added the fire clown. The fire clown is about 3 inches and the occ's were about 1 inch and 1.5 inches. It didn't go well. I know I needed more rock but I'm not positive that would have helped. I feel terrible about it and if I had it all to do over again I would have gotten rid of my fire clown even though it is my oldest fish.
If I were in this situation, I would get rid of the maroon. I had a large clarkii at one point (considered a less aggressive fish than a maroon, but more aggressive than an occ or perc.) She was one of the nastiest fish I've ever owned. I would prefer to keep a mated pair over a potential problem fish in the future.
(My clarkii wound up in a FO system I had and held her own with much more aggressive fish more than twice her size like my adult Koran angel and Undulate trigger - both aggressive individuals)
I have mixed clowns in the past and maroons are a tough one to mix with. I would think the only way to pull this off is with them hosting anemones on opposite sides of tank. I did this with my 4ft 90 gallon. But i still had to remove my saddle back about 11 months later as he got big and hated my ocellaris.
Would it be worth trying it and then removing the Maroon if it does not work or should i not even attempt it?
Also, my Bi Color is no angel (pun intended)
I don't think you'll have a problem with the angel and the occs, or the maroon. I think your trouble will be with the clowns. In my opinion, a 4-5 inch maroon is a big clown and will be looking to keep the entirety of the tank as his territory. He may just kill the female and then bully the male until the maroon switches. But since he is so large, he just may not tolerate them at all.
If you're certain your occs are paired (meaning one has become female) then I would absolutely not do it (if I were in that situation.) But if they have not had their battle yet, and are both still male - there would be hope the maroon would just bully until it went female.
I did the same thing. Combined two tanks and have a maroon and oscelaris. Currently the Maroon is in the sump but he will be rehomed shortly. I didn't want to even try to mix them.
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