Data Sheet		Semi Picasso Clownfish
Scientific Name:	Pomacentridae Amphiprioninae
Other Names:	anemonefish
Origin:	Asia -Pacific Coral Reef
Adult Size:	2-5 inches, depending on species
Social:	Very good. peaceful fish, but may get territorial
Lifespan:	3-5 years
Tank Level:	bottom, coral	Tomato Clownfish
Minimum Tank Size:	20 gallons (but bigger recommended)
Diet:	Omnivore
Breeding:	Easy
Care:	Medium
Ideal pH:	7.0
Temperature:	75° F. to 82° F.
Tank setup:	With corals, etc
Sexing:	Females are the largest.

two banded clownfish Maroon clownfish Goldbanded Clownfish Sabae Clownfish Tomato Clownfish two banded clownfish Amphiprion Clarkii Saddleback Anemonefish Allards Clownfish Yellow Clownfish Percula ClownFish Black Ocellaris

Description: Clown fish are a speices of very beautiful fish that comes in various colors from yellow orange to red, and usually have white strips on their bodies. It grows to be about 8 cm in length. Habitat/Care: Saltwater fishes requires more space and care than freshwater fish. They are not recommended as beginner fishes as a result. For more information on requirements for saltwater fishes, please see the saltwater tank setup. In the wild they all form symbiotic relationships with sea anemones.Clownfish and certain damselfish are the only species of fishes that can avoid the potent poison of a sea anemone When a sea anemone is not available in an aquarium, they may settle in some varieties of soft corals, or large polyp stony corals. If the fish settles in a coral, it could agitate the fish's skin, and, in some cases, may kill the coral. Once an anemone or coral has been adopted, the clownfish will defend it. As there is less pressure to forage for food in an aquarium, it is common for clownfish to remain within 2-4 inches of their host for an entire lifetime. Clownfish that are far removed from their parents through captive breeding may not have the same instinctual behavior to live in an anemone. They may have to be coaxed into finding the anemone by the home aquarist. Even then, there is no guarantee that the anemone will host the clownfish. Diet: Most clownfish are omnivores. They should be fed a diet of brine shrimp, or chopped shrimp, squid or clams. They will also eat plant matter and can eat flake food, although the majority of their diet should consist of animal protein. They will also nip at algae and plant matter that grows in the aquarium and benefit from live rock growth. Breeding: Since these fish live in a warm water environment they can reproduce all year long. Each group of fish consists of a breeding pair and 0-4 non-breeders. Within each group there is a size-based hierarchy: the female is largest, the breeding male is second largest, and the male non-breeders get progressively smaller as the hierarchy descends. If the female dies, the male changes sex, becomes the breeding female and the largest non-breeder becomes the breeding male. The fish apparently form lifetime pairs, exhibit courting behavior, and depending on the size of the female spawn about 400-1500 eggs per cycle The fish lay their eggs in a safe spot close to the anemone from where they are easily protected, and the parents can retreat to the safety of the anemone if danger threatens. Anemonefish usually lay their nests in the evening after a few days of carefully cleaning and examining the chosen site. Preferred egg sites are flat or slightly curved rocks or some other item the fish have dragged near their nest for the purpose. (In captivity, clay pots and saucers are an attractive choice.) First the female deposits some eggs with her ovipositor (a whitish tube descending from her belly), making a wiggling pass over the surface, then the male follows behind her fertilizing the eggs. After many passes, the nest is complete and will hatch in 6-8 days shortly after sunset, usually on a very dark night. In the meantime, the male is very protective of the nest and ceaselessly fans the eggs to provide proper oxygen circulation, and checks them for any bad eggs, which he eats before they can rot and damage more eggs. Females may or may not help the male tend the nest. At hatching, the larvae burst free and swim up toward the moonlight and the open ocean to ride the currents and eat plankton for about a week, before the still tiny metamorphosed clowns return to the reef and look for an anemone to settle into. Species: Amphiprion ephippium clownfish looks very similar to the Tomato and Cinnamon clownfish in body shape, but it lacks the single white stripe behind the eye in the adults. A white stripe may appear in juveniles and a very small white stripe in sub-adults. Amphiprion frenatus is usually bright red as juveniles, older females will often be mostly dark red or black on the body. Juveniles can often be seen with 2 or 3 white stripes, but it will only have one stripe behind the eye as an adult. Amphiprion melanopus (Cinnamon) normally has a red face and dorsal fin and a predominantly black body, pelvic and anal fins, and a pail yellow tail. Most have a white stripe behind the eye, but in some fish in some populations the white stripe can be absent. Amphiprion ocellaris (Ocellaris/False Percula or Nemo) is the most common clownfish in the hobby. This fish is nearly identical to the Percula clownfish (Amphiprion percula) in appearance. The general differences between the two species is the thicker black border surrounding the white stripes on the Percula, and the amount of dorsal spines, Ocellaris having normally 11 and Percula having normally 10. The thickness of the black border can vary on Ocellaris, on some fish it is very thin while on others it can be a couple millimeters wide. The color of Ocellaris is variable, from light yellow, orange, brown, and in rare specimens black (reported to come from Darwin, Australia). Amphiprion percula The color on this fish is variable from light orange to red, and often with such thick black borders around the white bands that they often connect the white bands. Amphiprion perideraion (Pink Skunk) is normally a pink color with a white stripe down the back and a white stripe down the operculum (gill plate). Amphiprion polymnus (Saddleback) is variable colored, ranging from light brown, black, and orange and black. This clownfish has 2 or 3 broad white bands with the middle band starting mid body and extending into the to back of the dorsal fin. The middle stripe often resembles a horse saddle. The black color form of this clownfish is often misidentified as a Black Percula, of which is also a misidentification of the Black Ocellaris. Amphiprion sandaracinos (Orange Skunk) is very similar to the Skunk Clownfish in color, except that the overall color of the fish is orange, and the white stripe down the back extends all the way to the top of the upper lip. Premnas biaculeatus (Maroon) is the largest clownfish with females some times reaching as much as 7 inches (16.25 cm). Females of this species are usually a dark maroon red or brown in color while the males are more bright red. This clownfish most often has 3 white or yellow bands. It is often difficult to pair this clownfish. Large females will some times if not often kill a potential mate when introduced to an aquarium together.

Got a photo? Contact me

References Cited:

SeaView Aquarium, Keeping Clown Fish CareSheet, [Online][Available], http://www.seaviewaquariums.com.au/images/caresheets/caresheet-clown.pdf ;

Peto, Clownfish Care Sheet http://www.petco.com/caresheets/fish/Clownfish.pdf

Wikipedia, Clownfish, [Online], [Available], http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiprion_percula

The Aquarium Wiki, Amphiprion Percula, [Online], [Available], http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+2124+755&pcatid=755

Live Aquaria, Ocellaris Clownfish, [Online] [Available], http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+2124+755&pcatid=755

AquaWorld Aquarium, Clownfish and their Host Anemone, [Online], [Available] http://www.aquaworldaquarium.com/clownfish_and_their_host_anemone.htm

John H. Tullock, Clownfish and Sea Anemones: Everything about Purchase, Care, Nutrition, Maintenance, and Setting Up an Aquarium

It says over 20 million tropical fish and about half as many other forms of marine life are caught every year for the trade.

There is also a persistent demand for some forms of coral, the UN believes.

But it says the aquarium trade, if it is properly managed, can help coastal communities to climb out of poverty.

The report, From Ocean To Aquarium: The Global Trade In Marine Ornamentals, is launched by the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Unep-WCMC), which is based in Cambridge, UK.

The report is timed to coincide with the launch of the Disney movie Finding Nemo, the story of a clown anemonefish separated from his dad on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, who ends up in a dentist's surgery.

Together with the blue-green damselfish, the clown fish heads the list of the most traded tropical fish.

The report says the annual catch from tropical seas for the marine aquarium trade in Europe and the US totals more than 20 million tropical fish from 1,471 species, ranging from the sapphire devil to the copperhead butterflyfish.

Another 9-10 million creatures from about 500 species, including molluscs, shrimps and anemones, are caught as well, with up to 12 million stony corals taken from the wild each year.

The report says the annual value of the trade, which is concentrated in south-east Asia, is $2-300m. In the Maldives, one kilogramme of aquarium fish was valued at almost $500, while the same weight of tropical fish for food was worth only $6.

The live coral trade is worth about $7,000 per tonne, against $60 for a tonne of coral used for making limestone.

The UN says the aquarium trade is worth about $5.6m a year to Sri Lanka, providing 50,000 people in low-income areas with jobs - and, it says, with a strong incentive to conserve the fish and the reefs.

The executive director of the UN Environment Programme, Dr Klaus Toepfer, said: "Collecting tropical fish brings pleasure to millions.

"The global trade in marine species poses a significant risk to valuable ecosystems like coral reefs, but it has great potential as a source of desperately-needed income for local fishing communities."

Although the trade is mainly legitimate, the report details some methods which are certainly not sustainable.

One of the authors, Colette Wabnitz, said: "A minority of fishermen, in countries such as Indonesia, use sodium cyanide to capture tropical fish. An almost lethal dose of the poison is squirted into the reef where the tropical fish shelter.

"It stuns them to allow capture and export, but can also kill coral and other species. The tropical fish may survive the export process but usually die of liver failure soon after being purchased."

Gold standard

The report relies heavily on data from the Global Marine Aquarium Database, compiled by Unep-WCMC, the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC), and members of different trade associations.

Technorati Tags : tropical fish, fish, fishes

In July 1988, a community hospital in southeastern Missouri reported isolating Plesiomonas shigelloides from the stool of a 14-month-old girl with watery diarrhea (no blood or mucus) and fever. Her highest recorded rectal temperature was 102 F (38.9 C). Her stool was negative for Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia, Aeromonas, and rotavirus. The child was treated with trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, and her illness resolved after 5 days.

The child had consumed no shellfish and had never traveled more than 80 miles from her home. She had consumed water only from the municipal system and recently had waded in two area lakes. She attended a day-care center, but no other children in her age group were reported ill. The child did not have an aquarium or other close association with animals. However, 1 evening each week, the child stayed in the home of a babysitter who kept piranhas in an aquarium. When the aquarium was cleaned, the water was poured into the bathtub. The child routinely was bathed in the bathtub before going home. The babysitter reported that the child could have been bathed immediately after the aquarium water had been poured into the bathtub.

P. shigelloides was isolated from samples of aquarium water submitted to the State Public Health Laboratory. However, plasmid studies were not performed, and it was not determined whether the bacterial strain isolated from the child's stool was identical to that isolated from the babysitter's aquarium.

To estimate the prevalence of P. shigelloides in tropical fish tanks, investigators from the Missouri Department of Health (MDH) surveyed aquarium water samples from several sites in Missouri (Table 1). Samples were taken from 18 aquariums, including at least two tanks from each of Missouri's six regional health districts. P. shigelloides was isolated from four (22%) of the 18 tanks. The four tanks were located in three different aquarium fish shops: two in central Missouri and one in eastern Missouri. Employees of the three aquarium fish shops reported no health problems in the tropical fish in the culture-positive tanks.

MDH advised managers of all surveyed tropical fishshops to have employees wash hands after contact with aquarium water or tropical fish. No special precautions were recommended to managers of shops from which P. shigelloides was isolated. In addition, the baby sitter was advised to clean the tub thoroughly using chlorine bleach after discarding the aquarium water and before using the tub for bathing. Reported by: PS Tippen, A Meyer, EC Blank, DrPH, State Public Health Laboratory, HD Donnell, Jr, MD, State Epidemiologist, Missouri Dept of Health. Div of Field Svcs, Epidemiology Program Office, CDC.
Editorial Note: P. shigelloides, a gram-negative bacterial rod, is an opportunistic pathogen in the immunocompromised host and has been suspected to cause diarrheal illness in normal hosts (1,2). However, the organism failed to produce illness in volunteer feeding studies, and its role as an enteric pathogen remains unproven (1). Persons with P. shigelloides infection typically describe a self-limited diarrhea, sometimes with blood and mucus in the stool; appropriate antibiotic therapy appears to shorten the duration of illness (3,4). P. shigelloides can also cause cellulitis and septicemia.

This organism has been isolated from surface water, the gut of freshwater tropical fish, and many animals (including dogs and cats) and is particularly common in tropical and subtropical habitats (5). In humans, most isolates have been from stools of patients with diarrhea who live in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia; isolations from Europe and the United States have been rare and usually associated with foreign travel or consumption of raw oysters (3,6).

Although no other P. shigelloides gastrointestinal infections associated with aquarium water have been reported, the frequency of P. shigelloides in pet shop aquariums reported here suggests this could be a source of this rarely recognized infection. Basic precautions, such as handwashing after contact with aquarium water and preventing the contamination of potable or bathing water by aquarium water, should decrease transmission of potentially pathogenic microorganisms from aquarium water.

References

1. Herrington DA, Tzipori S, Robins-Browne RM, Tall BD, Levine MM. In vitro and in vivo pathogenicity of Plesiomonas shigelloides. Infect Immun 1987;55:979-85.
2. Nolte FS, Poole RM, Murphy GW, Clark C, Panner BJ. Proctitis and fatal septicemia caused by Plesiomonas shigelloides in a bisexual man. J Clin Microbiol 1988;26:388-91.
3. Holmberg SD, Wachsmuth IK, Hickman-Brenner FW, Blake PA, Farmer JJ III. Plesiomonas enteric infections in the United States. Ann Intern Med 1986;105:690-4.
4. Kain KC, Kelly MT. Clinical features, epidemiology, and treatment of Plesiomonas shigel loides diarrhea. J Clin Microbiol 1989;27:998-1001.
5. von Graevenitz A. Aeromonas and Plesiomonas. In: Lennette EH, Balows A, Hausler WJ Jr, Shadomy HJ, eds. Manual of clinical microbiology. 4th ed. Washington, DC: American Society for Microbiology, 1985:278-81.
6. Reinhardt JF, George WL. Plesiomonas shigelloides-associated diarrhea. JAMA 1985;253: 3294-5.

It says over 20 million tropical fish and about half as many other forms of marine life are caught every year for the trade.

There is also a persistent demand for some forms of coral, the UN believes.

But it says the aquarium trade, if it is properly managed, can help coastal communities to climb out of poverty.

The report, From Ocean To Aquarium: The Global Trade In Marine Ornamentals, is launched by the UN Environment Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (Unep-WCMC), which is based in Cambridge, UK.

The report is timed to coincide with the launch of the Disney movie Finding Nemo, the story of a clown anemonefish separated from his dad on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, who ends up in a dentist's surgery.

Together with the blue-green damselfish, the clown fish heads the list of the most traded tropical fish.

The report says the annual catch from tropical seas for the marine aquarium trade in Europe and the US totals more than 20 million tropical fish from 1,471 species, ranging from the sapphire devil to the copperhead butterflyfish.

Another 9-10 million creatures from about 500 species, including molluscs, shrimps and anemones, are caught as well, with up to 12 million stony corals taken from the wild each year.

The report says the annual value of the trade, which is concentrated in south-east Asia, is $2-300m. In the Maldives, one kilogramme of aquarium fish was valued at almost $500, while the same weight of tropical fish for food was worth only $6.

The live coral trade is worth about $7,000 per tonne, against $60 for a tonne of coral used for making limestone.

The UN says the aquarium trade is worth about $5.6m a year to Sri Lanka, providing 50,000 people in low-income areas with jobs - and, it says, with a strong incentive to conserve the fish and the reefs.

The executive director of the UN Environment Programme, Dr Klaus Toepfer, said: "Collecting tropical fish brings pleasure to millions.

"The global trade in marine species poses a significant risk to valuable ecosystems like coral reefs, but it has great potential as a source of desperately-needed income for local fishing communities."

Although the trade is mainly legitimate, the report details some methods which are certainly not sustainable.

One of the authors, Colette Wabnitz, said: "A minority of fishermen, in countries such as Indonesia, use sodium cyanide to capture tropical fish. An almost lethal dose of the poison is squirted into the reef where the tropical fish shelter.

"It stuns them to allow capture and export, but can also kill coral and other species. The tropical fish may survive the export process but usually die of liver failure soon after being purchased."

Gold standard

The report relies heavily on data from the Global Marine Aquarium Database, compiled by Unep-WCMC, the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC), and members of different trade associations.

Technorati Tags : tropical fish, fish, fishes