O Clowns - Big Problem - Help Needed

[LJA]

I have had an orange Ocellaris clown in my tank for about 2 months, and has grown quite a bit since I've had it. I made sure that it was not the biggest one at the LFS when I picked it up so by now it is defiantly a female.

Friday I decided to add a black O clown to pair with my current orange one and thats where the problem is.

As soon as I added this little guy my orange clown would not stop chasing him around until I intervened and chased him away. Even my Coral Beauty and Chromis were chasing it!

Thinking about my options I decided that it would be best to leave him in there and hope that this is just the orange one establishing it's dominance as the female. So I left the black one in and waited until today(Sunday).

Came home today to see my little black O clown with his dorsal, pectoral, and tail fins all beat up and torn (no red showing though). I felt that at this point I should just take it back to my LFS and go with a different fish. Well long story short the LFS refused due to the damage to the clown and I went back home.

So as of now the clown has been beaten up by every fish in my tank, transported 40 minutes in my car, and spent over an hour in a bag.

I decided to take drastic measures. I completely removed every piece of LR and placed it in my sump and proceeded to catch that damn Chromis (successful). This part really sucks because I had an AWESOME layout of my LR and hated to change it because it was so perfect.

So.... about 4 hours later I have all my LR back in my tank and it looks alright, just need to get used to it. My Chromis in my sump until tomorrow when I take it back to my LFS, and my black clown back in my DT.

So the current inhabitants of my DT are:

Coral Beauty
Black O Clown
Orange O Clown

And all seemed well until the lights went off and the chasing continued.


Questions:


Should I medicate for the damaged fins?

Should I just take out one of the clowns?

QT the black clown?

Supplement the food with vitamins?

Do anything else?

When will this fighting stop? And is it normal for it to be this tuff?


Thanks for reading my long post and I appreciate your help.

 

[LJA]

Could someone shed some light on this for me please.

 

[Slakker]

Unsure of medications useful for torn fins, sorry.

Would remove one if fighting continues at this rate, but if it continues like this the female may take care of that for you.

QT everything, always.

Vitamins can't hurt anything, but are not likely to cause them to stop fighting.

Fighting should stop in a few days. Generally with Ocellaris it isn't this bad...you may have two females on your hands.

 

[LJA]

They can't both be females, the black one is less than one inch. It was clearly a juvenile in the LFS's tank of 30+ clowns.

Thanks.

 

[Eldouble]

Put your O in time out. Try and net her, and and leave her in there for two or three days. This takes her out of the mix and lets the rest establish their new territories. So when you let her out she is the new kid and has to re-establish her territory. Or drop her in the sump with the chromis. Don't take any fish back to the store...

 

[smalls383]

I tried to do the same thing and pair a black/whit and a orange ocellaris clowns.....long story short............no luck and a lot of fighting....also had to destroy my aquascape to get to them both and send them back