Tank bred or wild

[Dbondaruk]

hello i want to buy some clowns tommarow. reg oscilaris clowns.....

is there a really big difference in the tank bred ones or the wild ones. i can get the wild ones for 12 bucks or the tank bred ones for 20???? do they act the same or color wise the same and aggresion?? and i want to get 2 small ones to form a pair thank you

 

[R1junkie]

imo i would go for the tank breds just out of principal that they aren't being taken from the ocean

 

[Tmoriarty]

Same, the captive ones are more expensive because they are more expensive to raise, in general at least.

The captive ones also do not cause more fish to be taken off the reefs, so they are more enviromentally concious of a purchase.

Ultimately the choice is yours, captive or wild caught. The fish in general will act more a less the same in every regard.

 

[velvetelvis]

Agree with the above posters--tank-bred is always best, for many reasons.

 

[Dbondaruk]

Problem is my lfs only has wild caught ones. And the tank bred are ones from petco and there tanks are nasty ich all the time.... I am going to QT but still a risk.... Why do people say wild ones are hard to feed?

 

[MikeInToronto]

Problem is my lfs only has wild caught ones. And the tank bred are ones from petco and there tanks are nasty ich all the time.... I am going to QT but still a risk.... Why do people say wild ones are hard to feed?

The only real difference is the environmental one. WC clowns, properly quarantined, will be just fine. Out of preference, I would buy WC simply because the CB clowns I find in shops are mostly "designer" clowns and/or inbred. They look weird. I am a purist when it comes to my clownfishes and I want them to look like they do in the ocean. I don't really see CB true-form occellaris clowns much.

WC clowns, freshly imported may not survive your QT. Keep that in mind and if the clowns at your LFS have been there for a while, they are more likely to survive.

 

[God.]

Ive got 2 wild caught percs and they are fabulous. They eat frozen mysis and NLS marine pellets.

Only drawback is they really hide deep in my anemone so they arent easily visible all the time.

 

[Dbondaruk]

ok thanks alot for the help

 

[Tmoriarty]

WC clowns in my experience eat just fine. If you only have access to WC healthy clowns then If I were you I would buy those and not the CB ones at Petsmart. Supporting the store with fish infected with disease is just as bad for the enviroment as buying WC clowns, if not worse.

 

[jt_milstead]

You are more likely to get Brookynella from a wild caught clownfish.

 

[Ostara]

The only real difference is the environmental one. WC clowns, properly quarantined, will be just fine. Out of preference, I would buy WC simply because the CB clowns I find in shops are mostly "designer" clowns and/or inbred. They look weird. I am a purist when it comes to my clownfishes and I want them to look like they do in the ocean. I don't really see CB true-form occellaris clowns much.

WC clowns, freshly imported may not survive your QT. Keep that in mind and if the clowns at your LFS have been there for a while, they are more likely to survive.

Huge +1 to this. I would love to buy captive-bred clowns but frankly, I've yet to find one that is up to my standards conformation (shape) wise. I am extremely picky about the head shape on clowns; I love the sharp clean lines of a wild caught specimen. The shape of captive-bred clowns seems to range from so-so to (more frequently) pretty bad. Eventually I'm sure this will improve, but I'll have to wait until then to own a pair of CBs.

 

[velvetelvis]

If the clowns available locally aren't in good shape, you can always use an online vendor like LiveAquaria or BlueZoo, which stock CB ocellaris. I've kept CB clowns exclusively for 5 years, ever since I started reefkeeping, and never had any with conformation issues. I have noticed some poorly-raised clowns with deformities (especially pink skunks, for some reason), but most of the non-designer ocellaris I've seen looked just fine. If you go through a reliable vendor--especially if you buy WYSIWYG--it shouldn't be an issue.

An alternative to CB clowns, if you're not happy with how they look, is to buy tank-raised (as opposed to tank-bred) clownfish. Sustainable Aquatics, for example, offers several clownfish species that are collected from the wild at a very early stage in their development and then reared in captivity. Many of these youngsters might not have made it anyway, and you're not removing healthy, breeding adults from the wild gene pool.

I'm a big fan of choosing aquacultured livestock whenever possible, especially if you're a hobbyist like me, who just wants a pet. I can see breeders (including small-scale, private breeders like several people on this forum) importing wild livestock to strengthen their bloodlines or begin culturing new species, but that's not a concern for most of us. The aquarium hobby isn't the biggest threat to ocean habitats, but it does affect them, sometimes negatively. Even individual choices have an aggregate effect when thousands of people make them.

 

[rssjsb]

If the clowns available locally aren't in good shape, you can always use an online vendor like LiveAquaria or BlueZoo, which stock CB ocellaris. I've kept CB clowns exclusively for 5 years, ever since I started reefkeeping, and never had any with conformation issues. I have noticed some poorly-raised clowns with deformities (especially pink skunks, for some reason), but most of the non-designer ocellaris I've seen looked just fine. If you go through a reliable vendor--especially if you buy WYSIWYG--it shouldn't be an issue.

An alternative to CB clowns, if you're not happy with how they look, is to buy tank-raised (as opposed to tank-bred) clownfish. Sustainable Aquatics, for example, offers several clownfish species that are collected from the wild at a very early stage in their development and then reared in captivity. Many of these youngsters might not have made it anyway, and you're not removing healthy, breeding adults from the wild gene pool.

I'm a big fan of choosing aquacultured livestock whenever possible, especially if you're a hobbyist like me, who just wants a pet. I can see breeders (including small-scale, private breeders like several people on this forum) importing wild livestock to strengthen their bloodlines or begin culturing new species, but that's not a concern for most of us. The aquarium hobby isn't the biggest threat to ocean habitats, but it does affect them, sometimes negatively. Even individual choices have an aggregate effect when thousands of people make them.

++++Agree with all of this.

 

[Dbondaruk]

Hmm live aquaria gives a 14 day guranteee..... Might be worth the shipping, thank you

 

[Winwood]

The only real difference is the environmental one. WC clowns, properly quarantined, will be just fine. Out of preference, I would buy WC simply because the CB clowns I find in shops are mostly "designer" clowns and/or inbred. They look weird. I am a purist when it comes to my clownfishes and I want them to look like they do in the ocean. I don't really see CB true-form occellaris clowns much.

WC clowns, freshly imported may not survive your QT. Keep that in mind and if the clowns at your LFS have been there for a while, they are more likely to survive.

Bingo!