Remove field-collection-view and field-collection-container fromt field output
I managed to find the answer.

Through adding this function I replaced the containing &lt;div class="field-cllection-container&gt; with nothing "".

function jacob_d7_theme_field_attach_view_alter(&amp;$output, $context) {

  // First check we're dealing with a field collection field.
  if(!empty($output['field_add_image'])) {
    // Now check for our specific field collection field.
    if ($output['field_add_image']['#field_name'] === 'field_add_image' ) {

      // Alter the prefix.
      $output['field_add_image']['#prefix'] = '';
    }
  }

}


then to remove the containing div for each field item I created a file called field-collection-view.tpl.php with only the following code. to remove the &lt;div class="field-collection-view clearfix"&gt;.

&lt;?php
  print $element['#children'];
?&gt;