Hi MrTuskfish. That is not always the case. I have had these three clowns for over fours years now. My wife had bought me four originally when she was on a business trip in Montreal. We had been looking for some and she couldn't resist when she saw how nice they were. After a preiod of time the two largest clowns paired off and they decided to kill the fourth clown. I caught him and sold him privately. The mated pair do their thing and leave the third one alone. My theory is they leave him alone in case something were to happen to one of the mated pair, the third clown is there to continue to propogate the pair. He would step in as the male if the male died, or be the male for the surviving male if the female died, and the surviving male would become the female. I had this exact same scenario act out about fifteen years ago when then too I have bought four ocellaris clowns.
And you are right, there are exceptions to the rule. I was in Disney World in Orlando several years ago in the Living Seas pavillion. They had a large round aquarium with a pair of ocellaris that were laying eggs while I was there. Low and behold, about three feet away and two feet higher was another pair of ocellaris who had already laid eggs, and both pairs were coexisting peacefully.
The real problem in my tank started the first night the LED whites turned off and only the blues were on. That is when the female started acting agressively towards her own mated partner and as mentioned the behavior has continued this whole week. I was at work all this week so I could not observe their behavior in the morning, so this morning I went down and waited for the lights to come on. When the blue LEDs came on the male was in the leather unbrella with the female, the second she saw him she attacked him and chased him out of the umbrella. The third clown was all the way across the tank hosting in his hammer coral. But now that the white LEDs are on both male and female are swimming together and hosting in the leather umbrella. They never really bother with the third clown.
