Tomato Clownfish

About

The tomato anemonefish (Amphiprion frenatus) is one of the more straightforward clownfish to keep, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's a pushover. Adults develop a rich, deep red-orange coloration with a single white bar just behind the head. Juveniles often show additional bars that fade as the fish matures. Females tend to be the larger and more dominant of a pair, which follows the pattern common to all clownfish: they are protandrous hermaphrodites, meaning males can transition to female when the social situation calls for it. In the wild, this species ranges across a broad sweep of the western Pacific, from the Gulf of Thailand down to Java and up to southern Japan, where it lives in close association with the bubble-tip anemone Entacmaea quadricolor in lagoon reefs and sheltered bays. Pairs are monogamous and breed readily in captivity, with the male taking on egg-guarding duties. The personality here is genuinely feisty. This fish will challenge other clownfish species and can bully smaller or more passive tankmates with real determination. Kept with appropriate companions and ideally paired with a bubble-tip anemone, it makes a rewarding and long-lived centerpiece fish for a beginner to intermediate reef setup.