Allardi Clownfish

orcafood

Member
I was thinking about getting an Allardi clownfish. In your guys experience, how hardy are they? Are they hard to get? Are they aggressive?
 
They can be a bit touchy and difficult to ship, but once they are acclimated and healthy, they are in my experience comparable to clarkii as far as care. If you do decide on them, just watch for any signs of stress or disease and be ready to treat them. They aren't terribly agressive (compared to clarkii anyway), and although they aren't as common as the "staple" clownfish, they can be found if you are willing to search around a bit. Hope this helps :)

Matt
 
Thanks for all the good information Matt,
What kind of diseases should I be watching out for?
Price wise, and stability wise, should I try to find an established pair, or just two juveniles?
What size clown should I try to get ideally (in inches)?
 
Watch out for brooklynella with these. The symptoms can be clamped fins, rapid breathing, abnormal swimming, and a hazy or cloudy apperance to the scales/skin in advanced cases. Also watch for amyloodinium. More information for symptoms treatment can be found here:
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/Trevor-Jones/fishdiseases.html

If you can find a healthy established pair, then go for it :) Otherwise, juveniles seem to be better shippers and handle acclimation without as many problems.

Once established and healthy they grow very quickly (one of our juveniles has grown from 1.5" to ~3" in only a few months), so purchasing juveniles may not be a bad idea. Hopefully some of the experienced clownfish "regulars" can add to this as well if they are still checking-in.
 
Orcafood, take a look at the website for Inland Aquatics in Terra Haute, IN. They are a large Oasis in the middle of a marine desert that breeds all types of clowns. I was there this past week and bought a beautiful pair of A. bicinctus. They have a very nice pair of A. allardi. The male is small but the female is a about 2" and has great color.

Their website is poor but there is a list of all their stock, wild caught and tank raised. Perhaps they will send you a pic.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for all the information, and ssavader, I emailed them about the clowns.
Can I just use a 25 gallon rubbermaid container (filled up to about 12 gallons) and a thermometer with just a Bak Pak skimmer hanging on the side as a QT. The water would be from a water change in my 90 gallon reef, where the pair would be going.
 
Where else would be a good spot to get an Allardi?

Also are tank raised clowns more likely not to have disease then wild caught?
What are the possitives and negatives of tank raised Allardi?
If they are a better choice where would be a good place to get a tank raised Allardi?
Also are Allardi being bread anywhere? Would that be a better choice?
 
If tank-bred allardi were available, I would definitely recommend them. Unfortunately I don't know of anyone who is regularly producing allardis. Tank-bred fish tend to be much easier to acclimate and generally less likely to arrive with disease or health problems.

Does Morgan at Inland Aquatics have any? You may pay a bit more, but their fish are top quality. Several of our productive spawning pairs came from them :)
 
I am definetely willing to pay extra for top of the line clowns! If only I could get him to email me back, or is it a better idea to phone him?
 
Orcafood, just give Josh or Mike a call- the number is on their web site. I don't think that they are breeding allardi (they just had them in stock)- but ask them to be sure.

The difference between tank reared (TR) and wild caught (WC) is that TR are hardier and more well suited to aquarium life, do not generally carry brook (unless they were exposed during their rearing), are more resistant to disease, do not require an anemone, and do not result in depletion of the natural reef. Also, when WC clowns are removed from their anemone, the anemone typically perishes.
 
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