I am writing this just to introduce you to the Pomacentridae family, clownfish, damsels, and chromis, and a summary of what the family’s are like, and which maybe right for you. (see individual fish profiles for more information)

Clowning around

(image credit: Bill19)
Clownfish have got to be the most popular fish in the marine hobby. Many come to marines so they can keep ‘Nemo’, and for good reasons, they are cute, charismatic, very hardy, and stunning little fish, and have to be one of the best suited to aquariums of any marine fish, because in the wild they live in anemones and they don’t leave them, so they are used to confined spaces, and they don’t need anemones to live and they will even breed with no anemone present. The most popular clownfish have got to be the percula clownfish and the ocellaris clownfish, these are very similar clownfish, and are common in aquatics all around the UK. These are usually what are classed as ‘Nemo’, since they have the classic orange body with white stripes, but they are readily available in black, and sometimes in slightly mutated forms where their stripes are strange shapes. They are small so only need around a 50 litre aquarium, but have brilliant characters, like all clownfish, and can be hand fed and will even nibble your finger. Those are the smallest clownfish, a medium sized clownfish for around a 100-120 litre tank is the tomato clownfish, these clownfish only have one white stripe on their body, behind their eye, on their bright orange, or sometimes darker body, other medium clownfish are the skunk clownfish. If you have a large system you may be interested in the maroon clownfish, these are large (15cm) aggressive clownfish, which need a 120-200 litre tank. These clowns have dark red bodies with white stripes, although some times the stripes are yellow. Other large clownfish includes the Clarkii clownfish.

Saving Nemo
Since the Disney film ‘Finding Nemo’ sales of clownfish have gone up tenfold, unfortunately a lot of the people who bought these fish didn’t do their research and killed their fish. A lot of those fish were collected from wild, and still are today. In the wild all clownfish are getting rarer and rarer. Along with global warming the clown fish decline is also affecting the amount of anemones on today’s reef, in the wild anemones need clownfish and clownfish need anemones, so anemones are getting rarer too. But almost all clownfish are easily bred, and are being bred in great numbers by some companies. There are easily available captive bred so this is my plea to you to buy captive bred clownfish, as there easier to care for, more likely to survive, frive and even breed, and you will be helping out their wild cousins.

Beauty, but a beast!

(image credit: Bill19)
Damsel fish are true stunners with the pure blocks of bright almost neon colours, but a lot of the family are aggressive and can cause problems in the marine tank, but they are very hardy and great for the beginner and some are relatively small. One of the smallest and least aggressive damsels is theyellow tail blue damsel, although one of the least aggressive it can still cause problems, but with its neon blue and yellow colours it’s a favourite. One of the most popular aggressive damsels is the humbug damsel, these are bold black and white stripes and are striking members of a marine tank, but can be monsters!

Safety in shoaling
Chromis are beautiful fish, and are another very popular fish, due to them being hardy and pretty little fish, and to add to this, they are shoalers, and nothing looks quite as good as a group of fish dancing over the top of the swaying corals in a large reef tank. The commonest available of all chromis is the blue/green reef chromis, these beautiful, peaceful fish grow to around 8cm, they can be kept on their own in small nanos of around 75 litres, but they really do prefer to be in shoals of around 6 or more in a 200 litre tank, that’s when they are at their best. Another chromis is the black mouth bicolour chromis, these can grow to up to 12cm, and also like there damsel cousins they are aggressive, they need to be kept in groups of 4 or more or they will become more aggressive, and due to their size and aggression they need a 200 litre aquarium. There are many other fantastic species for the aquarium including the tiny black and white chromis, and the stunning blue reef chromis.

By Bill

P.S Article may only be distributed with permission from me