aggression issue

Brew12 · Oct 2, 2016

So, today I finally got some fish and put them in a 10 gallon QT. I picked up 2 oscellerus clowns and a royal gramma basslet. The clowns are definitely picking on the gramma. The guy at the LFS didn't think this would be a problem but it is.
I'm not even sure dividing the tank using egg crate will work. Is this something that might resolve itself or do I need to figure out how to keep them divided?

cmcoker · Oct 2, 2016

Brew12 said:
So, today I finally got some fish and put them in a 10 gallon QT. I picked up 2 oscellerus clowns and a royal gramma basslet. The clowns are definitely picking on the gramma. The guy at the LFS didn't think this would be a problem but it is.
I'm not even sure dividing the tank using egg crate will work. Is this something that might resolve itself or do I need to figure out how to keep them divided?

How many hidey holes do you have in there?

Tried turning off lights?

May be safer to use some sort of divider or acclimation box for a couple days..

Brew12 · Oct 2, 2016

cmcoker said:
How many hidey holes do you have in there?

Tried turning off lights?

May be safer to use some sort of divider or acclimation box for a couple days..

I have a few PVC elbows in there. It was happening even with the lights off although there are still other lights on in the room.
Tried to make a quick divider but the dang clowns are so thin they are getting between the divider and the wall of the tank.

mcarroll · Oct 2, 2016

In a reef that size it might work....not surprising in a QT tank. QT is not natural and it's stressful, so behaviors are more unpredictable.

cmcoker · Oct 2, 2016

Brew12 said:
I have a few PVC elbows in there. It was happening even with the lights off although there are still other lights on in the room.
Tried to make a quick divider but the dang clowns are so thin they are getting between the divider and the wall of the tank.

Hopefully it subsides but you could get a critter keeper and put some holes in it for flow and use that as an acclimation box. Just make sure it has enough flow going through it.
Something like this

You could also take the clowns back and run the gramma through quarantine, then let it establish itself in the display while you qt some clowns.