Merge Pattern Brush constituent shapes

Hi!, 

I used an ellipse with tapered edge to make a pattern brush, my goal is to create scales of fish, but when two path intersect, it creates weird intersecting disturbance, like in image below

I want to remove intersecting lines inside like a white fill, but since I'm using Brush i got strokes only and can't use pathfinder, I'm new to illustrator so any suggestions plz to merge intersecting lines so intersected part is white