Clownfish trouble

[Diamond1]

For the last 1 1/2 years I have had a pair of oscellaris clown fish in my tank that have gotten along and hosted together in a leather coral. I recently moved and decided to upgrade my tank from a 29g to a 40g breeder. The move went well, everything survived and is doing fine. No water quality issues and everything seems very happy.
After about a week the female of the pair started to bully the much smaller male and would chase the male away from their host. This morning I found the male almost dead from a very severe beating he took from the female. As soon as I saw him I removed him from the display and put him in the refugium but his injuries were so bad he didn't make it.
I can only assume that because of the move the female felt she had to re-establish her territory and that was the root cause of the aggression towards the male.
If anyone has any insight I would really appreciate hearing from you and your experiences. I would still like to have a pair of clowns in the tank but not sure if I want to take a chance on adding another fish with the female being as aggressive as she is.

 

[oscarinw]

You could try to add a small oscellaris and place him in an acclimation box right next to the host. If aggression goes down (you should notice)then it should be safe to assume she's accepted him.

 

[Luka]

Yea...in clowns world the male needs to show the female that he can keep his on territory. Searching for a new host is stressful for clowns. Maybe the female has rejected the male as a mate. But if anything I would take the female out of the new tank and put her in QT. Let the male find a host first then try adding the female once he does.