Bully Clowns—Can’t remove the male

[mel_ociraptor]

Hey there! New to saltwater but not new to the aquarium hobby—we have a 90gallon (4 month old) reef tank whose inhabitants are 2 emerald crabs, roughly 6 hermits, 8 snails, and 4 juvenile Ocellaris clowns (2 black ice and 2 bulletholes—they’re orange). We got the original four because they were captive-bred and raised together and hoped they would pair off. One of our original bulletholes passed within the first month and we got one (also captive-bred, from the same breeder) to replace him so the female bullethole had a buddy.
the newest bullethole had a pretty normal social acclimation, he was bullied a little by the female and within a day everyone was happy.
Now five weeks later, my male blackice is being bullied to hell by the female black ice. Both bulletholes are behaving well and the male blckice is submissive to both bulletholes, but he is terrorized by the female black ice clown. At this point I’ve started “Stress Coat” dosing a few days ago and today I picked up a clear separating box, so I can keep him in the same water but keep him safe, and was recommended to treat the tank with Melafix in conjunction with the Stress Coat.
The question (finally) is: if me trying to chase him out of the tank and into this box is panicking him, is it better to just let the clowns sort it out? I’ve tried putting food (live brine shrimps—that they love) and their soft-freeze mysis shrimps in the box, I’ve tried putting it in the net, letting the net sit for awhile, everything… I just can’t decide if I’m doing more harm trying to get him to safety than good..
Any kind advice is welcome, I’ve got about 20 years of reading experience so I know clowns pair up, are aggressive, and it’s hard to keep more than one pair in a tank, but I also know a lot of this is up to the individual fish’s personality and just plain biology. Any experiential or kind, educational advice is a gift!

 

[AydenLincoln]

Definitely try and persuade him with food and capture him. You can either give him away or banish him to an isolation box/sump or use a divider like that. Clowns do best when they are all the same types from the same tank and if you can get them young. My favorite are the classic orange ocellaris they typically are super peaceful and pair easily from the same tank but when one is trying to establish dominance they may bully that goes for all clownfish. Having multiple types in the same tank will typically cause them to fight and bully each other which doesn’t help even if they are all ocellaris. It’s also hard because replacing a clownfish is hit or miss.

 

[Kiboshed]

Definitely try and persuade him with food and capture him. You can either give him away or banish him to an isolation box/sump or use a divider like that. Clowns do best when they are all the same types from the same tank and if you can get them young. My favorite are the ocellaris they typically are super peaceful and pair easily from the same tank but when one is trying to establish dominance they may bully that goes for all clownfish. Having multiple types in the same tank will typically cause them to fight and bully each other which doesn’t help. It’s also hard because replacing a clownfish is hit or miss.

This is correct. From everything that I have read you either go one male/female pair of Clownfish or like 6+ all of the same type so aggression is dispersed.

Having a small group of mixed will just always end in the death of the smallest and weakest ones till there is only the dominant Female/male pair.

Try catching it in the dark with the tank lights out, headlamp, and a dark net. It worked well for me.

 

[mel_ociraptor]

Definitely try and persuade him with food and capture him. You can either give him away or banish him to an isolation box/sump or use a divider like that. Clowns do best when they are all the same types from the same tank and if you can get them young. My favorite are the classic orange ocellaris they typically are super peaceful and pair easily from the same tank but when one is trying to establish dominance they may bully that goes for all clownfish. Having multiple types in the same tank will typically cause them to fight and bully each other which doesn’t help even if they are all ocellaris. It’s also hard because replacing a clownfish is hit or miss.

Yeah they are all Ocellaris (just different subs), all juveniles and all from the same breeder/tank in my LFS by the time they acclimated there, too. The little black ice wasn’t bullied until a few days ago when they must have been re-sorting their groups and he was the weakest one, I guess..

 

[mel_ociraptor]

This is correct. From everything that I have read you either go one male/female pair of Clownfish or like 6+ all of the same type so aggression is dispersed.

Having a small group of mixed will just always end in the death of the smallest and weakest ones till there is only the dominant Female/male pair.

Try catching it in the dark with the tank lights out, headlamp, and a dark net. It worked well for me.

They are all Ocellaris clowns, from the same group/breeder/tank etc. and all juveniles, the little black ice wasn’t picked on until a few days ago but for the last month and a half he was paired with the other black ice. All four of my clowns are young and the same species, I think they’re just trying to figure out who’s who.

 

[mel_ociraptor]

UPDATE! Was able to get Baby into the box last night and fed. He was very stressed from me having to catch him but he perked up a bit within ten/fifteen minutes. Definitely watched him eat a few shrimps before bed. Almost immediately after I got him to safety, the larger black ice clown started showing submissive behaviors to my two bulletholes, which was wild because with Baby in the tank he was definitely the most aggressive out of all four. Now it’s like the whole game just restarted.