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What to do with an aggressive clown?

4K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  rininger85 
#1 ·
Hi wise forum,
I've had an occelaris clown fish as one of my first fish in my 29g biocube. I also have a cleaner shrimp, six line wrasse, and a fire fish. All of the fish were living completely peacefully for 6 months. Then one day, the clown fish started nipping at the fire fish. The firefish basically went into hiding and now I only see it once every two weeks or so. The clown fish next started nipping at the skunk cleaner shrimp (the cleaner shrimp!). It eventually bullied the cleaner to death and chewed off its antennas and tail.

The clown is pretty adorable and my kids love it, but I'm tired of the aggression. I've tried rearranging the rocks... no dice. So now I've segregated the clown in an acclimation box hanging in the tank.

What's the best next step here? Do I just return the clown to a LFS; do I keep him in the acclimation box for a day to see if that resets the pecking order? Do I try to pair the clown with another clown to see if that has any effect? Or any other ideas...? We do have another cleaner shrimp and the clown immediately went after it, and I don't want it to kill him as well. All suggestions would be welcome...
 
#4 ·
Oh she's pretty! But if she has that much attitude and since you already caught her I think I'd trade her for another - hopefully you'll get one that's more peaceful. I saw your other thread about adding one curbing the aggression, but I'd never heard that before. I suppose it's possible, but it's also possible she may bully the newcomer to death if she's that mean...
 
#5 ·
Thanks ChiWing - I'm thinking you're right. I've had her the longest, but she's starting to terrorize the tank.

She's beautiful and silly and fun to watch... er, except when she's awful and mean and literally pulling a shrimp across the tank by the antenna.

I'm wondering if she's maybe a percula and not an occellaris and if that could account for the aggression?
 
#6 ·
I really can't tell - she has trademarks of both. Maybe a mix? Maybe someone with more experience with both species will pop in and ID her. You could always keep her and rehome the others - try pairing her with another clown and just having a clown tank. Or set up a second tank.
 
#9 ·
in my experience adding another clown might give it someone to bully and as long as the second clown falls in line and is submissive it might be OK, but more likely it would bully it to death, and adding anemones have only made things worse for me. My black occ clown is getting more and more aggressive, but it seems like only towards me.. it attacks my hands when they are in the tank... but other than establishing the pecking order when I added my orange occ clown it hasn't really bullied other fish... but it becomes pretty protective and doesn't want my hands in the tank... when I was doing a lot of work in the tank I had to catch it and put it in my sump until I finished what I was doing...
 
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