What to do with my male freddy?

[Tommytipper87]

So I had a male and female parachromis friedrichsthalii who I brought together and where only 3 inches at the time. I've had them for a little over a year the female was always the boss, she was certainly more bulky then the male and was about 6 and half inches in length and the male wasn't as bulky but was coming on close to 7 inches. 2 weeks ago I did my usual weekly water change in my 6x2x2 tank just them 2 in it I should add with hiding places. After it was done lights go out and I see them doing a bit of lip locking which they've done in the past but this time the female I notice has Swam away and gone into hiding which is very unusual for her as she would always be the aggressor and chase him till she was satisfied. Just a few weeks before that he was actually not eating and in the corner alot due to more chasing then usal I believe, anyway he suddly became this agressive killer fish and all he seemed to want to do was litually chase and chase and peck at her fins, no matter the hiding place she picked, he would find her. I couldn't believe after over a year this fish in 1 day just changed in behaviour. Now I did notice an egg floating on top of the water which made me think this could have been the reason for his change in mood but I've also noticed a few eggs floating months ago but he never acted like he has back then. When I noticed he was being very aggressive I ordered a divider but Unfortunately the divider never came in time and he had stressed her out too much and she died, gutted as she was a very nice fish bar her very agressive nature towards him at times but then hey that's parachromis for you. So now am actually stumped because it's very difficult for me to find another female at that size and if I was to move him on it would be very hard as people in my location really don't seem to keep these kinds of fish. What do you think I should do? Keep him and get another female or give him away and go with different fish altogether? Love the parachromis species though. I think maybe they never paired even though at times I felt they may have. I know I should have gotten a divider before but I monitored them both every day and I know she was agressive but never to the point where she was trying to kill him, was more a hey look am boss kind of thing, she would chase then leave him alone, they both also would stay together during a water change morning. Funny thing is they use to always hide and be scared when I did a water change, you wouldn't think that with this species. A lesson has been learnt here though, no matter how well you think you know your fish, they can turn in a blink of an eye even after over a year.

 

[duanes]

This is very normal with cichlid behavior , because if a male is ready to spawn, and his only available partner isn't, she usually dies unless they are quickly separated. One reason I always suggest starting with at least 6 or 8 juvies to grow up together, and always have a divider at the ready.
That said, females don't need to be similar in size, they only need to be ready, in many compatible cichlid pairings, the females are often half the size of the male.
If you could find 4 or 5, x 3-4" females one might work out, but expect 3 out of the 4 to not make it thru the selection phase.
For me, I've never wanted just one, of a species of cichlid, so once a member of a pair would die, I would often go to my local aquarium society auction to see if there were others available, or if not, and none available in some other way, I'd then auction off my loner.