I’ll Scratch Your Back And You Scratch Mine'

With their bright colours, energetic personalities and undeniable charm, Clownfish are of course one of the most popular species to be kept by marine aquarists. But their appeal goes beyond the obvious - their fascinating behaviour around anemones can also make them very rewarding to keep and watch.

Clownfish live in a special symbiotic relationship with certain anemones such as the Bubble Anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor), meaning that they help each other to survive in a mutually beneficial partnership, each profiting from the other.

In the wild, Clownfish can and do choose to make their homes amongst the stinging tentacles of anemones, but they themselves remain entirely unaffected, meaning that they gain a measure of protection from larger fish that would otherwise prey on them. Yet as in any good partnership, the protection goes both ways. Clownfish are quite territorial and defend their homes aggressively, so when it chooses to live in or near an anemone, the anemone also benefits as the clownfish chases away polyp-eating species such as Butterfly Fish.

In addition, Clownfish feeds on the scraps and leftovers provided by the anemone’s meals including copepods, isopods and zooplankton, while the anemone benefits from the fertilization provided by the nitrogen-rich faeces of the clownfish.

In many ways then, the marriage between fish and anemone is one made in heaven, with each helping to ensure the survival of the other and coincidentally making for an extremely appealing team that aquarists find impossible to resist.