Catch my clown

[phishlet]

Anybody have any brilliant ideas on how to catch my ocellaris? This clown has to be one of the most aggressive ocellaris clowns I've run across over the years. No chance in keeping any other clown with her in my 125.

She is killing corals that she "hosts" with too. I have a splendid blue carpet anemone in the tank now that she won't touch (I know its not a natrual surrogate... but its got to be better than a trumpet coral) and I've had long tentacles and rose bubbles in the tank and this clown won't touch any of them. Right now it is hosting a green trumpet coral but sometimes goes down into my welsophylia coral and whips around causing it to close up.

Any ideas on how to catch the clown? I'll never catch her with a net. I've tried using a small plastic reptile cage with a bunch of food inside and managed to catch a yellow tang, solar wrass, and flasher wrasse.... but no clown.

 

[seaguy7]

I had the same problem with a Clarkii pair. The female was extremely aggressive. I finally caught them both using a fish trap (the acrylic kind with a sliding door). For 3 days I was feeding all of my fish in the trap using mostly mysis. On the first day all of my other fish would go into the trap to eat except for the Clowns. After three days, they got hungry enough to go in and I finally caught them.

Our LFS rents the trap for $5 a week.

 

[criccio]

Wait until the lights are out and there's no light (other than the bare minimum for you to see) and scoop her up when she's sleeping.

 

[phishlet]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7453246#post7453246 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by criccio
Wait until the lights are out and there's no light (other than the bare minimum for you to see) and scoop her up when she's sleeping.

I've tried that too. Unfortunately she sleeps away from the welsophylia coral between two rocks.

I tried something yesterday. I purchased a very small ocellaris out of group of ORA clowns. It was the smallest one of the bunch and no other clown was showing agression towards it and it was not showing aggression towards any others. So it didn't seem to be one of the dominant females or males turning females. I put it in after all the lights went out last night.... and within 5 minutes it swam to my female... and they seem to be paired off! Wooohooo!

Now if they'll just switch from the wellsophylia to my blue carpet that would be most excellent!

 

[stykthyn]

congrats on the pairing. perhaps she will lighten up now.

 

[phishlet]

2 days later and it still seems like my female is pairing off with the newcomer!!