Latz info?

[chrisstie]

Hey guys. I'm getting very serious about bringing home a Latz at the LFS thats been there a few weeks. She's big and healthy looking but she seems kind of glum being stuck to just a store tank without much room or reef to hang out on.

I am having a very hard time trying to find a care sheet so have been asking some of the great locals I know about her to see if she's viable in my tank.

She's pretty big and I'm wondering if a 55g thats been established for 8 monthswould be enough for her. I have a pair of clowns in there already that I would take out and move to another tank.

The other stock would be a midas blenny, duskey blenny, longfin fairy wrasse, possum wrasse, cleaner goby

I don't think she'd have a problem with these guys but I don't have an anemone in the tank so I'm not sure where she would mark as her territory. So far she seems very docile as a clown and isn't protecting any of the tank deco stuff in the store right now. She's got a personality that is like "I'm not fat just big boned please love me"

I'm just wondering if she might be too big for a 55.. she's full sized.. 4-5"

In a month or so I will have my other tank up and running- the other pair of clowns will wait at the store to go back home into that one and once its ready I will shift some coral over to it and could put in an anemone for her

What do you think?

 

[blface]

Try the same question at rareclownfish.com These clowns are known to prefer cooler temps than most reef tanks for their longevity. A 55 gallon is big enough.

 

[chrisstie]

thanks very much for the lead I will try over there too

 

[triggerfish1976]

There have been several threads regarding the care of latz in the last few months. If you do a search for Latezonatus or Latz you should be able to find them.

I have personally kept 6 in the last year (1 adult and 5 juves). The adult did not fair well and only made it a few weeks before dying of Brook (my best assumption). I have had 5 Juveniles for close to 2 months now and they are doing great. I Qt'ed them for several weeks before placing them in the main display and haven't had any issues thus far.
I keep my tank temps around 79-81 degrees. I feed them a mixture of various frozen, flake, and pellet foods and they eat everything with gusto.
As discussed in other threads there seems to be an influx of Juve's and some adults coming into the US every couple of week. From my experience and accounts from other people who have been able to get the juve's they seem to all be doing very well and acclimation to captivity doesn't appear to be as big of an issue as it is with the adults.
If you choose to buy the adult there are thing to consider:
1. Adults seem to be much more skiddish then the babies and will jump from the tank if startled. The juve' have been know to jump as well but not as frequently as the adults.
2. As with most fish, large adults have a harder time acclimiting to aquarium life and a 5" adult should be kept in larger tanks (100g) and I think they prefer cooler temps whereas the juve's are probably collected in shallower waters thus are easy to acclimate to regular tank temps.
3. QT, QT, QT. I believe that hobbyists have not properly medicated Latz clowns in the past in fear of sterilizing the reproductive abilites of the fish which gave rise to the notion that they were a delicate fish. If you get one don't be affraid to use copper and other meds in order to make sure that all pathogens are taken care before placing it into the main tank. If your current fish show any signs of disease I would make sure that the Latz is healthy before placing it into the main display because a weak stressed Latz will generally catch whatever is in the tank.

If you have any more questions feel free to PM me.