Clownfish Q's

Every time I take the fiancee and the kid to the fish store I get asked by the pair of them if we can get a clownfish (I put an abrupt end to them calling them "nemos" :). I have no plans on adding an anemone to this tank, and am worried about them hosting in my torch, frogspawn, or a leather and having them recede.

A friend of mine has a similar 125 setup that has been running a lot longer than mine. He has 3 or 4 clowns kicking around and 1 decided to host a nice colt coral making it start to wither away. They also steal any and all food that's meant for his LPS's and seem like a real pain to have. There is a couple large clowns in my LFS's display tank that are really chill and dont seem to bother or host anything . . .

Is there a particular kind of clown that works better without anything to host? I love my torch, I just got it and it has 10+ heads that at full mast make a great centerpiece to my tank. If I get a clown and it decides to host my torch will it be OK?

~Will.

 

Really, the answer to all of your questions is "depends". Sorry
Clowns will host what they want, or not, with no certainty. And that pretty much goes for all clowns, regardless of species. The corals can choose to accept it, or not, with no certainty. Some clowns do host torch corals. Sometimes, the torch is fine with it and stays fully open and lives on happily ever after. Sometimes they don't.
My pair host in a patch of zoas. At first, it irritated the heck out of them. But they became use to it, and now don't close up at all with the clowns playing around in them.
I personally say get a pair. My clowns are still my favorite fish, I couldn't imagine having a tank without a good pair.

OHS! AND GET DA NEMOES!!!!111!!!!3! DEY R BEST! SAH HAI 4 ME! BAI 4 NAO!

 

LAWLZ ZOMG NAO I NEEDZ DEM ANS A DORI KTHNKSBAI!!!!!11eleven

Another problem I have is the kid likes the normal orange ones, my fiancee likes the black with orangish noses, and I like the big aggressive yellow striped maroon clowns.

~Will.