Sometime a particular fish just wants to test out his or her mate to make sure they will pass on good strong genetics. My latest pairing for my Shinto Dragon 2.0 project, the pair were fighting for almost two days straight.
This was after the female beat up another smaller male. I usually remove one fish only if they start running away or hiding and obviously trying to avoid the other fish. I feel that some breeders may be removing their fish too early.
If the pair are obviously not showing spawning behavior such as cleaning a nest area or body shaking, then it may be wise to remove one fish.
For my most recent spawning, my fish did not show nest cleaning behavior until I poured a handful of gravel into their ceramic plate. As soon as I did that, the female started to move the rocks out of the plate and the male started nest cleaning about thirty minutes later. With their focus on cleaning the nest, the pair stopped fighting, for a moment.
Simon
This was after the female beat up another smaller male. I usually remove one fish only if they start running away or hiding and obviously trying to avoid the other fish. I feel that some breeders may be removing their fish too early.
If the pair are obviously not showing spawning behavior such as cleaning a nest area or body shaking, then it may be wise to remove one fish.
For my most recent spawning, my fish did not show nest cleaning behavior until I poured a handful of gravel into their ceramic plate. As soon as I did that, the female started to move the rocks out of the plate and the male started nest cleaning about thirty minutes later. With their focus on cleaning the nest, the pair stopped fighting, for a moment.
Simon
