is it worth the hassle?

[JohnnyHildo]

i'm right in the middle of cycling my tank and trying to build a list of fish to plan around. at least one (possibly 2) black and white clown fish are on my list of potential occupants... or at least i thought they would be. i'm reading a lot about people having issues with their clowns taking over the tank, harassing other fish and nipping hands when feeding coral or doing maintenance.
just curious how many out there are second guessing adding them to their reefs?

 

[m0nkie]

that's the more aggressive maroon clowns.. or maybe skunks.. not your typical black and white ocellaris.

 

[Dans85]

My female ocellaris thinks she is the boss of the tank. Every time I stick my hand in the tank she nips at me. Never had trouble with her nipping coral though, but they have 4 BTA to call home. Not sure if that makes a difference or not.

 

[ThRoewer]

My percula are such chicken that they hardly ever leave their anemones.
How clownfish behave depends also on how you keep them. Clowns without anemone are more likely to claim the entire tank than clowns with anemone. It also makes a difference if the anemone is their natural host or a surrogate.

While clownfish can be kept without anemone, they do best and behave most naturally with one.

 

[bws]

i know i have had the orange and white "nemo" looking clowns before and when its hosted to an anemone it attacked my hand every time i did anything at all in the tank. doesn't really hurt but it sure gets annoying. i have 2 of them currently and they don't bother me at all but they are not hosted yet either. they are fun fish to watch and i enjoy them very much. also how often are you're hands really in the aquarium? and you really should use a pair of decent rubber gloves when you have hands in a reef tank i have had some irritations of my hands that is very itchy and turns red after moving corals before not thinking about the chances of the toxins that some corals can put out when picking them up. that was worse than the clowns pecking at me by far...

also as of right now my tank "bully" is a blue tang and am seriously thinking of getting rid of it because he quite aggressive to everything in my aquarium when its feeding time he eats about 90% of the food every time

 

[ThRoewer]

I was never too bothered by percula or ocellaris attacking my hand - it's actually a sign that the fish feel at home and confident. It only gets annoying with the larger species that have more punch - the A. melanopus I had always bit me so hard that it was bleeding.