Should I put my fish in the box?

Ocean’s Piece

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So my royal gramma is an absolute jerk. He thinks he owns my entire Biocube 32, or at least half of it and is always picking fights with other tank mates. I have let this go on for months and months and it’s just getting old now. He wants to be the top fish but my Midas blenny is over him. The royal gramma is always starting fights and he constantly gets nipped and chased by my blenny for starting a fight (Midas blennies are notorious fin nippers, so I don’t think much of that. I don’t suspect it’s the Midas blennies fault, because that’s in his DNA or whatever, but I know my royal gramma is a jerk because I had two clownfish previously and I had to return them because they were getting in fights over territory. I was very inexperienced, so I didn’t know that fish fight on occasion). He’s probably been nipped about 15 times in the past 4 months, not even making that up. Today, I was watching from a distance and he was fighting with my new cleaner shrimp for being somewhat near his sleeping spot. It’s just something that has gotten out of hand. Do you think that putting my royal gramma in my breeders box for a few days will help reset the aggression and territorial issues he has?
 

Lyss

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I have a trio of dwarf puffers in my FW tank and one of them is a bully. It came to a head one morning when one of the females showed up with a chunk out of her tail, acting strange, and wouldn't eat. I put her in the breeder box to heal, which she did, then put the bully in when I released her. He stayed in there for a few weeks and didn't like it one bit. The key was that I rescaped the whole tank during a water change on the day I released him. It worked to a certain extent and it's much more peaceful in there now than it was, but didn't (and couldn't) change his disposition. So I guess I'm saying it can work to a certain extent but don't expect a miracle where the fish is cured of being a jerk and doing jerk stuff from time to time.
 
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Uriken

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I just recently went through this was a new designer clown fish. After putting him in the tank he decided he was going to change the temperament of all the fish and be a bully. I even have a cheap camera facing my tank so while at work to check and make sure everything is ok. Its amazing what you see when your not there. Regardless, I knew catching him was going to be fun as I have a heavily stocked reef system with plenty of hiding spots. But after getting him out I put him in a vented specimen container for a solid couple weeks. The 1st few days I could tell he was mad and wanted to rejoin the group yet as days went by he settled down. Once I released him back thinking he calmed down it was not even 2 minutes later and he was back to being a bully. In the end he had to be pulled and placed in another tank. Or if I didn't have one available I was going to return him back to the store for a small credit.
Best of luck. I know it can be frustrating. But its worth taking the time to catch them cause the tank mates will be much more relaxed without that type of aggression in there.
 

Cincyreefer513

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This could just be a one off or maybe there is something to it, but I used to keep mbuna cichlids in a 6ft 150. I had a lot of fish in there, but the one species I really liked and was really rare, happened to be hyper aggressive. Keeping more than 1 male wasn't recommended even in a 6ft tank, but I really wanted 2 because they looked that good. Well, for the first week the dominant one really beat up the other. I decided to take my net and intervene during one of the fights. For the next 20 or so minutes anytime the dominant fish attempted to go after the other, I'd chase it away with the net. They stayed on opposite sides for awhile so I decided to leave the net in the middle of the tank for 24hrs. Btw the net was fairly large. The next day, they were still on opposite sides so I took the net out and observed. Well, some how they learned to get along after that and they both kept to their half for the next couple years. Unfortunately I came back to one dead after a 12 day vacation. Who know if it was due to fighting or not.
Maybe worth a shot? My experience could have just been pure luck though.
 

Unitylover

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This could just be a one off or maybe there is something to it, but I used to keep mbuna cichlids in a 6ft 150. I had a lot of fish in there, but the one species I really liked and was really rare, happened to be hyper aggressive. Keeping more than 1 male wasn't recommended even in a 6ft tank, but I really wanted 2 because they looked that good. Well, for the first week the dominant one really beat up the other. I decided to take my net and intervene during one of the fights. For the next 20 or so minutes anytime the dominant fish attempted to go after the other, I'd chase it away with the net. They stayed on opposite sides for awhile so I decided to leave the net in the middle of the tank for 24hrs. Btw the net was fairly large. The next day, they were still on opposite sides so I took the net out and observed. Well, some how they learned to get along after that and they both kept to their half for the next couple years. Unfortunately I came back to one dead after a 12 day vacation. Who know if it was due to fighting or not.
Maybe worth a shot? My experience could have just been pure luck though.
probably not due to fighting, and maybe its pure luck. some fish learn to respect eachother
 

Lyss

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This could just be a one off or maybe there is something to it, but I used to keep mbuna cichlids in a 6ft 150. I had a lot of fish in there, but the one species I really liked and was really rare, happened to be hyper aggressive. Keeping more than 1 male wasn't recommended even in a 6ft tank, but I really wanted 2 because they looked that good. Well, for the first week the dominant one really beat up the other. I decided to take my net and intervene during one of the fights. For the next 20 or so minutes anytime the dominant fish attempted to go after the other, I'd chase it away with the net. They stayed on opposite sides for awhile so I decided to leave the net in the middle of the tank for 24hrs. Btw the net was fairly large. The next day, they were still on opposite sides so I took the net out and observed. Well, some how they learned to get along after that and they both kept to their half for the next couple years. Unfortunately I came back to one dead after a 12 day vacation. Who know if it was due to fighting or not.
Maybe worth a shot? My experience could have just been pure luck though.
I think there's something to this, b/c in addition to rescaping the tank before I let my male dwarf puffer back out, I definitely "police" him during feeding time and if I happen to catch him chasing one of the girls any time during the day. I just stick a pipette in and chase him off w/it, and he has learned to respect me and my pipette lol.
 

Unitylover

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that would prob work, because fish can link a sound or movement to food, so they should link bullying to being chased with the dreaded pipette.

Weird Fish Reaction GIF by MOODMAN
 

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