neon gobyshrimp

[zizmans]

Hey everybody, thanks for the look. My 7 gal right now has only a black perc. I'm going to be adding a BTA. I was also going to add a cleaner shrimp. I would rather put in a neon goby. My question is this. Is the bio load from a Cleaner and a Neon the same? Or is one more than the other? Do you think one would do better with the clownanenome?

[davejan]

An anemone in a 7 gallon? They are even harder to keep in nanos than larger tanks. I don't know abou bio load but i like the neon gobies more. I think they have a better personality.

[MKramer]

The shrimp has a smaller impact on the bioload, and in such a small tank, you'll have to worry about the clown being too agressive against the goby. Two fish in a tank that size constitutes crowding, in my book.

[zizmans]

Fair enough, that was the conclusion I came to . Thanks for the input. I think I was having abit of wishfull thinking. Do you really think a BTA and one clown is too much for a 7 though? I thought it would be OK.

[MKramer]

As long as it's one of the smaller clowns, I think that's fine. Problem is, percs and ocellaris tend not to host in BTAs. Same with skunks. It's a big dilemna, you can find clowns and BTAs that are fine in a small tank, but none that naturally go together. Some people report their percs or ocs host in their BTAs, but it's a crapshoot. And in my observations, the liklihood goes down if the clowns have no other fish in the tank to be afraid of.

[zizmans]

Damn, I finally figured out exactly what I wanted too. I thought Percs naturally hosted in BTAs? Well my clown wouldn't be afraid of any other fish I could responsibly fit into the tank I don't think, he's a little bashtage. LOL (Nipped my hand a few times, goes psycho killer on the magnetic scraper when I use it) I would be totally happy with just the clown and BTA with nothing else, as long as both specimens were happy. Hmmm...He was sort of hosting in a little green BTA in the tank I got him from. I didn't want to add them both at once though. Maybe I should have. Any more suggestions would be great, I'm going to the LFS this weekend.

[MKramer]

If you liked a BTA before, then there's a good chance he'll take to one again. But there are no guarantees

 

As for the nipping clown, I hear you there. When I feed my pair of ocellaris, I let them eat the food out of my hand. It's cute (albeit bad animal husbandry). But whenever I stick my hands in to do something else, they still go into feeding frenzy mode and nip up and down the length of my arm. It's cute. But annoying.

[FlyGTI]

Mine used to get a little lippy with me too. Tripped me out once when I was cleaning the glass when he nipped my arm, because at the time I also had a rather vicious Sally Lightfoot crab who had gone after me a time or two as well. Oooh, I was ####ed. Grabbed the net and chased the clown's ass all over the tank. He let up on me after that.

 

He went to the big tank in the sky a few months later while I was moving him from Michigan to Iowa. I miss that clown.