Up front...
3.5" female and 5.5" male dovii alone in a 125gal (will pick up a 300 in the next 6-9mo.'s or just go straight to a 600gal - knew that was part of the deal with these fish and it's not an issue). Both are growing fast and are very active. A little skittish still but otherwise looking and eating great. They paired up a few weeks ago and battered or killed 2 other juv. female Dovii and 3 green terrors that were considerably larger than them at the time. Gave the survivors to understanding friends.
*Water conditions are optimal.
*Pulled them both out / vented them to confirm sex (oo vs o0) - (I read you guys' posts)
Behavior question...
The female is beating up on the male pretty bad. Not all the time, but she regularly chases him, nips at him, flares up on him - all of the above constantly. He's super tolerant and only occasionally flares back, does the tail slap/swim in circles thing, and once in a while he does what I think is the twitchy infrasonic warning jaw noise thing They've been digging all over the tank, and have locked lips at least a few times that I've seen. I've read they can breed at this size but as ridiculous as I know it sounds am really hoping they'll wait.
Any ideas why my young lady seems to be in charge? I was worried he'd be rough on her after it started to look like they were pairing up. Spent hours and hours googling dovii behavior and found all kinds of great stuff but nothing like my situation. If anybody's seen this behavior before please advise as it seems to be in direct contradiction to literally everything I've read.
...I apologize in advance if this behavior has been described in a post I missed.
- J
3.5" female and 5.5" male dovii alone in a 125gal (will pick up a 300 in the next 6-9mo.'s or just go straight to a 600gal - knew that was part of the deal with these fish and it's not an issue). Both are growing fast and are very active. A little skittish still but otherwise looking and eating great. They paired up a few weeks ago and battered or killed 2 other juv. female Dovii and 3 green terrors that were considerably larger than them at the time. Gave the survivors to understanding friends.
*Water conditions are optimal.
*Pulled them both out / vented them to confirm sex (oo vs o0) - (I read you guys' posts)
Behavior question...
The female is beating up on the male pretty bad. Not all the time, but she regularly chases him, nips at him, flares up on him - all of the above constantly. He's super tolerant and only occasionally flares back, does the tail slap/swim in circles thing, and once in a while he does what I think is the twitchy infrasonic warning jaw noise thing They've been digging all over the tank, and have locked lips at least a few times that I've seen. I've read they can breed at this size but as ridiculous as I know it sounds am really hoping they'll wait.
Any ideas why my young lady seems to be in charge? I was worried he'd be rough on her after it started to look like they were pairing up. Spent hours and hours googling dovii behavior and found all kinds of great stuff but nothing like my situation. If anybody's seen this behavior before please advise as it seems to be in direct contradiction to literally everything I've read.
...I apologize in advance if this behavior has been described in a post I missed.
- J
...Relaxing time now. Thanks. Don't really care if they spawn or not, but I won't be ready for any grow outs until I find a shop to build my next tank. The first couple/few times aren't usually successful from what I've read anyway. 
