Mis-bar and clownfish interaction

[OrionN]

Clownfish breeders,
I recently got 5 clownfish babies (A. percula) all 1 inches or less. All of them have two bars formed but over the last month the third bars have started to form. All was living together with other babies but may not be from the same hatch. Of the five, there is one with an incomplete second bar on one side. This fish is nearly the second largest of the five. Initially they fight among themselves a little but over the last 2-3 weeks the other four gang up on the mis-bared fish. He is dropping in size because of this and he does not spend time in the anemones during the day. I actually have four animals witch host the clowns, an H. crispa, and S. haddoni, a Euphillia paradivisa and a large colony of green Mushroom. At this time, mis-bared clown always get chase by any of the other four fish and he spend time in the middle of the tank. When ever he goes near a host, even an empty one, one of the other four would come over and chase him out.
What do you guys and gals think? Is the inclopleted second bar the cause of this bad treatment? As soon as I have my other tank set up, I will move one of the anemone and will slit the five clowns out. One of the five is for an other person, but the mis-bared will be pair with the smallest clown for now.
I wonder if this is the reason why we don’t see much mis-bar in the wild.
Any opinion is welcome.

 

[OrionN]

No comments?

 

[GSMguy]

they always fight in groups if left long enough groups are hard to keep they will probobly kill the one getting picked on dont let it die please

 

[OrionN]

He is eatting and growing. Just not fast as the other four. he won't be with the group for long.
Thanks.

 

[JHardman]

I really doubt it has anything to do with the barring, and really think it has everything to do with the size/temperament of the fish being picked on.

 

[OrionN]

He was a larger one (2nd of five) of the group. He was the one doing the picking initially but now they all pick on him.

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

i 100% agree with jhardman.

orion, i bought 6 from the same breeder a year ago and the exact same thing happend to me. it just randomness of the individuals. nothing to do with barring. ive had clowns do that, seperated them for a few weeks, reintroduced them and they stopped fighting. sometimes it took several attempts to get them to get along. will it always work? definetly not. its just hard to predict what clowns will do sometimes.

its an interesting theory with wc clowns though. ive also often wondered why we do not see misbarred wc clowns.

 

[JHardman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8678634#post8678634 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by embryoguy
its an interesting theory with wc clowns though. ive also often wondered why we do not see misbarred wc clowns.

There might be some truth to misbars being at a disadvantage in the wild, but I doubt it is do to aggression, after all if we have hybrids that come from complete different complexes/body shapes...

If it is a disadvantage it is more than like one of camouflage and not one of selective aggression based on marking. But disadvantage of misbarring is likely offset by the reduced numbers collected versus the normally barred fish...

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

that makes sense jhardman. thank you for your insight.

 

[OrionN]

I post mainly to see if anybody, especially clown breeder, have the same observation. It is apparent that this was not observed.