Male JD terrorizing his mate

[erinsunshine]

I have a 6" male and 5" female Jack Dempsey pair. I've had them for approx. a week and a half. They've previously been known to be very shy... up until 2 days ago. Now the male is constantly harassing her. They used to sit together and it was rare to see them apart. I've tried rearranging rocks for her to hide (which is hard since they're so close in size) but he just takes that spot, too. She's been doing her best to hide near the filter tubes and stays at the surface, on the opposite side of the tank from him. You can tell shes stressed... she's pale, breathing hard, and has a couple nips on her side. He's making my other fish argue, too.

I'm assuming he wants to mate and she hasn't gotten used to her new home as quickly as he did. I was hoping she'd eventually give in, but that ain't happenin'. Does this sound right? What else could it be?

I'm at the point now where I think he needs to go to timeout. I've got an empty 10 gallon ready. I'm planning on putting him in there for a few days and reintroducing the randy male when she relaxes. I do have a couple more options, but this is #1. What would you do?

Stats:
125 gallon.
M&F JD
2x 3" Green Terrors
2x 2 1/2" Texas
lot 'o rocks
few fake plants

 

[Onion01]

try putting up a divider, let them mate like that

 

[killerfish]

we'll its hard to say if compleatly changeing the decor around moveing things in a totally differnt spot didn't work you may need to seperta them i would move the female out and give her time to heal and get healthy isolating aggressive fish can be like isolating people it can just make them worse or it can break them but its more likely that i wouldn't do much you may need to get a diffen't jackdempy i'd get a new male first unless you like it then i'd get a bigger female

 

[erinsunshine]

I added a decorative pot that's pretty enclosed and that seems to have subdued him enough. For the most part he just comes out when anyone else gets too close. That definitely saved a lot of hassle. And the female JD can relax a lot more.

I guess because he's the big guy he immediately claims ownership to any new additions to the tank!