Female maroon bullying male

[nicklepickle]

Hey everyone,

I have a pair of Maroon clowns and about 2 days ago the female started to get very aggressive towards the male. She is constantly biting at his tail fin and he almost has no fin left! I tried to feed them some pellets soaked in some garlic extract to see if it would help but he keeps spitting it out and only eats one or two of them. Anyone have any suggestions on what I should do? Should I take him out of the tank for a while till' he heals up? Will that break up the pair? Is this a common occurence? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[ATX aquarist]

were they a pair before this aggression? Has he gotten any bigger than what he used to be?

 

[nicklepickle]

They were a pair when I bought them from the store which was about 2 or 3 months ago. The female has gotten significantly bigger and the male has grown a bit but has gotten a lot darker.

 

[ATX aquarist]

hm. if the male is trying to become the dominant female i can see why the female is trying to beat him back down. I don't know if thats possible, but who knows, anything can happen. What I did when i paired my gold stripe maroonis put them in a 6 gallon tank with a plexiglass divider. That way they can sort out who is who without the bigger one killing the smaller. Here's a picture
<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r234/john082588/P1020627.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

 

[nicklepickle]

thanks for the help, I just did a quick fix for the night and stuck a piece of plexi in the middle of the tank to divide them till' tomorrow when I have time to make things a little nicer and more efficient. I'm using a 20G (the only tank I have atm) and it has quite a bit of live rock, that won't affect anything will it? As long as they can still see each other through the plexi they'll be fine correct? Thanks a lot for the help, greatly appreciated

 

[ATX aquarist]

Yeah it will work great. You probably want some rock it is more natural for them and they can feel more at home than a completely empty tank. They may ignore each other a bit, but it def helped me. Best of luck!