Dovii Pair Aggression??
- Thread starter mbunafishkeeper
- Start date
My pair has been together for almost two years with no issues. I have 2 flower pots inside the tank, no divider, no dithers but the tank is beside a community tank. The fishes in the community tank serves the purpose because they see them all the time. The male is 16" now and the female is 10". They are in a 180 6'x2'x2' tank and soon I'll move them to a 240 g tank.
I have had my pair for almost a year now the male is 9" and the female is 7" in a 125 gal. My pair get along well for the most part but 2-3 weeks befor she is ready to lay eggs the male will start beating her into spawning but it won't work. So i step in with the divider and keep them seperated til they are almost spawning through the divider. They will begin draging themselves across the divider a day or two befor the spawn then the divider is removed i watch closely for a hour or two then they settle down a little
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That night or the next day they have spawned and it's all good until the fry are removed or eaten then anytime after that keep the divider handy
. I don't have any holes in the divider i am using currently due the fact the female and male are so close in size the male is longer but not much thicker than the lady. With my pair the female was larger and older than the male so he has been evanly matched with her till just a few months back when he outgrew her. I got my dovii pair from another MFK member [AT2] i think he was on to good idea getting a larger older lady dovii and letting the male grow up with her.
. That night or the next day they have spawned and it's all good until the fry are removed or eaten then anytime after that keep the divider handy
. I don't have any holes in the divider i am using currently due the fact the female and male are so close in size the male is longer but not much thicker than the lady. With my pair the female was larger and older than the male so he has been evanly matched with her till just a few months back when he outgrew her. I got my dovii pair from another MFK member [AT2] i think he was on to good idea getting a larger older lady dovii and letting the male grow up with her.get some egg crateing (thin plastic grate) and put it in the middle of your tank. after that put two pieces of sheet rock on either side leaning agenst the back wall. the crate will both keep them apart and they will lay the eggs through it. done.
I have my pair in a 300 with no other fish and they get along great.Sometimes I see them nudging one another but nothing agressive.I'm really amazed at how well they do get along.Been keeping Dovii for about a year now and had seven of them at one time in this tank with no aggresion.There were two adults male @15" female @ 9" and five of their offspring 1 male and 4 females ranging from 5"-7" and all got along.Maybe I just got lucky. 
Mike
MikeI have bred 3 pairs and I have never had any aggression from the male to the female, i think only one occassion did the male even take a scale off of their female, two of my pairs had the male at about 15-16 inches and female around 7 inches and the other time the male was about 6 inches and female around 5 inches. Every time they were breeding the males were more worried about killing eveything thing outside the tank walking by rather then their mate.
in my original breeding pairs, the female was bigger than the male. male was about 13" they lived in 6x2x2 on their own with a divider in between, somehow she dug her way and squeezed herself into the male side, lost heap of scales in the process, 2 days later after i removed the divider, she laid on a flat stone, both guarding the eggs.
silly mistakes i did, i remove all their newly hatched frys and left over eggs. the male must've accused her female of eating their frys and killed her 2 days later.... note.. NEVER remove all the eggs or frys, leave some if you need to take them out.
i got him a new female, only half his size in the same tank but this time i put a breeding pairs of devils with their frys behind the divider, NO aggression from male on her new girl coz he's busy chasing devils. and it looks like the female is ready to lay atm......
silly mistakes i did, i remove all their newly hatched frys and left over eggs. the male must've accused her female of eating their frys and killed her 2 days later.... note.. NEVER remove all the eggs or frys, leave some if you need to take them out.
i got him a new female, only half his size in the same tank but this time i put a breeding pairs of devils with their frys behind the divider, NO aggression from male on her new girl coz he's busy chasing devils. and it looks like the female is ready to lay atm......
ok so i dont wanna have to divide my tank and put other fish in with them, if i just put a mirror on 1 end of the tank would that work???
