Hey all...

I am attempting to pair up a pair of bullies. Two absolutely stunning sumatran Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns. I was initially going to let them try to co-exist in the tank together to see if after a short scuffle things would settle down.

As fate would have it (and common sense) they weren't even out of their seperate bags before I noticed agression (Putting their noses to the walls of the bags and swimming at each other with all their might!) I didn't even bother putting them in the same tank together after that, I figured a more subtle approach would be in order... so I want to run the new plan by you.

The setting: a 10 Gallon tank (recently a fancy goldfish quarantine tank) Using an Eclipse hood (light and filter) + heater. I figure why waste a good tank, so I will be putting live sand from my fuge in there as well. Live rock will consist of one moderately sized piece per fish. (by moderate, to the tank of course, we are talking a softball a piece, maybe less.)

A plexi-glass divider will be placed lengthwise, from front corner to back corner, dividing the tank into two right angle triangles. holes for flow will be drilled into the plexi-glass, and I'll be putting approximately 1/4 inch deep teeth on the top edge to allow flow to spill over the top. I have two micro-jets I purchased for my pico-remora project, they will provide some additional flow to the tank, filtration will come out of one triangle and return to the other... so there shouldn't be any dead spots.

One clown each will go on either side of the barrier. I will leave this for an appropriate amount of time, could be a week, could be two, depends on the fish. And then, each fish will be restrained (probably with a glass) and I will take out the plexi-glass divider, change the angle so different sections of the tank are divided. however, optimally, this will not disturb the landscaping to much, and the fish will still have thier 'rock' as their territory.

The idea of this, is that over the next few months, the changing dimensions of the triangles ( I may do two squares at a time as well) will move their territory, every time the establish it, and it changes, the other fish will have access to territory it once didn't, and will lose territory as well.

Now, I know fish are not the smartest things in the world, but they do have memory, and some aquarists have noted that predatory fish that grow up with potential prey that is 'to large' for their mouths when young, but a morsel when older, will continue to ignore animals they would normally predate on, theory being they have 'become part of the scenery.

I am hoping I can take this principle and ingraine the futility of combativeness into these clowns, I know that when the divider eventually goes away, combat will occur, I am hoping that by lengthening their exposure to one another that I can lessen the agression in the combat... conversely, there is always the fact it could increase it as well.

In december, both these fish will go into a 115 gallon cube aquarium.
I have already planned on getting a couple more rose bubble tips to put in there for them to host in.

which brings up another point. one specimen is in the temporary refugium (with a fat belly full of mysis) and the other is in my display tank. They are both doing great so far, the one in the display started hosting in my rose anemone inside twenty minutes, I think the only thing that slowed him down was that it was purging when he went in.

I will try and post some pics...