New White Striped Maroon Clowns

Well, my tank is a 75 gallon All Glass tank with a DYI hood and stand.  The lighting is provided by an IceCap660 balast with 4 36" VHO lights providing about 320 watts (wish I knew the lumens as they are more important than the overall wattage, but wattage is an easy rule).  I stopped using my protein skimmer as I was skimming very little and found that it was a pain to maintain.  Also I worried about removing to much of the good with the bad.  I use a sandbed that is about 3" deep.  Also I have about 75lbs of live rock.  In conjunction with that keep a patch of algae growing.  Recently I added in a specialized surface skimmer.  What it is is a PVC pipe that is connected to a submersed pump.  The PVC pipe has slots cut into the top of it and sticks part way out of the surface of the tank.  This was to help remove the suface scum (bateria).  I think it cost me about 5.00.   I currently have two maroon clowns, lavender tank, and a green spotted mandrin.  also I have countless snails and a handfull of hermit crabs.  I have a brown montipora, orange branching montipora, a scroll montipora, Xenia Elongata (growing like a weed), green star polyps (growing like a weed), blue-green zonathids, royal toadstool leather, single mushroom polyp, and several richordea polyps.  Also have feather dusters, multiple sponges, sea cucumber (which I don't ever see doing anything), cleaner shrimp, and my two green bubble anemones.  I use a small pump to agitate the water surface, and a larger pump to pull the water from the bottom of the tank and shoot it to the water surface.  I had it first setup about 3 years ago, but in the last 8 months or so I moved it to its new preminant home.  The tank has maintained a constant pristine setting of pH 8.2, salinity of 1.023, temp 78-83F, Amonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate next to 0.  I do a weekly water change of 5 gallons to maintain the calcium and other trace elements, and to help reduce any build up of excess nutrients in the tank.  Living in Magna I use RO water produced by my house tap water.  For top off I use the same RO water.  I use the coral-life salt mix.  Thats my tank.

As far as other places that I have shopped.  I use to go to Pets and Such on 3500 south, but I found that they have an okay live stock list, but the people usually don't know much and they seem to have more than their fair share of sick looking fish.  Also all of their tanks are interconnected, so if one tank has a sick fish then all the tanks potentially have the same disease.  I also use to go to Marks Ark on Redwood Road, but due to several issues with the way they treat their corals, inverts, and fish I just don't go their anymore.  Marine World on 7800 has also an okay live stock list, but the people have a very basic understanding of reef systems and they seem to have tanks that are at times in poor condition.  I also use to go to the Aquarium in Sandy, but they have the same situation that I found at Pets and Such (tanks interconnected, etc.).  Bird World and Pet Village in Bountiful/North Salt Lake has a wide range of stock, but due to its overall size I have hard time getting any assistance from anyone that has a clue about reef systems.  The best place I have gone is Fish-4-U.  Chris is the person there that I deal with, and for the most part has not given me bad advice.  They have tanks that are well kept, I rarely see sick fish in their tanks, they have a wide range of corals and live stock to choose from, they have worked with me in trying to trade coral frags, and I just enjoy shopping with them.  But that is my experience and probably does not reflect everyone.

As far a literature, I have ClownFish by Joyce Wilkerson.  That book has given me a good understanding of how to raise and breed clownfish.  Also it gives a good explanation on how to keep certain anemones.

Flaz,

spawning clowns is awesome!  something worth writing about, and telling others about.  It would be something, if you were able to raise any of them.  We would have you talk about it for a meeting sometime. 

Adam

Here is an even better book called Anemonefishes (Just kidding Jake).  Seriously this is a great book.  I highly recommend it.  I've read through mine a few times.  Couldn't get the picture to show, so here is a link to it on amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1564651185/ref=lib_rd_ss_TFCV/102-3652731-3071356?v=glance&s=books&vi=reader&img=1

Adam

From what I have read in that book the author uses clay tiles.  She sets them close to their home and you just hope and pray that they attach their eggs to it.  Then you wait about 2 or three days (you must observe the color of the eggs) and pull the tile out and put them in a rearing tank, of about 10 gallons.

Something that I have noticed about these animals that we keep, is that they can do some pretty amazing things when put through the stress of shipping all over the world.  It sometimes seems to trigger occurances that wouldn't "normally"happen, so I would say that it is normal and it wouldn't surprise me if you did have some little clowns in your tank.  Your tank might have enough for the little guys to do towards the bottom of the tank and they might not get filtered out.  Food is the biggest thing for them.  They must be fed a lot, and your tank might have all the answers for them.

Well, I have noticed the little fish looking things in the tank now for quite some time.  I now have come to the conclusion that they are not the little fish I thought they were.  They are mysid shrimp.  It was very difficult to finally notice that they were mysid shrimp, but it makes sense.

An update on my fish though.  They have formed what appears to be a tight bond.  I have also noticed them occasionally cleaning rocks and such, so maybe some day they will actually spawn.