A. Borellii Breeding behavior or agression

[Pudding]

Hi,
Noticed my newish pair of Borellii doing a breeding dance, turning around and swishing their tails at each other. But now they keep looking angry at each other and grabbing each others face like a kiss. Is this regular or should i separate them? They hold on for a while and move around.
The female is larger than the male, assumed she was the male when i first got them but shes clearly yellow and he is blue, though not the strongest colours.
Couldn't find any info about "kissing" behaviour.
Sorry my camera is terrible

 

[MacZ]

Couldn't find any info about "kissing" behaviour.

Look up "lip locking".

Bad sign, this is the highest level of agression, I'd separate them and redo the tank. While the rocks make excellent sight blocks, they take up ground area. The rock formation would be great for Tanganyika cichlids, but is not very useful for fish that come from flood plains without sich formations. Structure is preferrably somewhat open areas divided by wood.
Let me guess, the fish mostly move all around the whole hardscape? The last picture gives me that suspicion.

 

[Pudding]

Dang,
Thanks for the response. I'll separate them tomorrow when the lights come back on and the fish are awake.
Would the design of this tank be better?

Its got an Apistogramma trifasciata male I'd have to move out but could be a good place to move the borellii pair?
I thought my rocky design would be good with lots of places to hide, but I'll have to redo that tank to fit them better.

 

[MacZ]

Not much better to be honest.

Take a look here:

Hello and questions about my Trifasciata couple

Hey from Oakland, CA! Been sneaking around on this site and finally wanted to join and introduce myself :)) I got an Apisto Trifasciata last september (my first apistos!) and within the first week they spawned! Since then the last 4 fry are in the growout tank and I finally reunited the parents...

apistogramma.com

 

[anewbie]

I think it would be ok for borelli; there seem to be enough hiding places and they are fairly passive. The worse is if you get an aggressive female and she goes hyper with frys. The lip locking might just be the female testing the male; but to be honest that 2nd picture i'm not even sure it is a female. If that is a female one big issue is she is nearly the same size as the male; but something seems off with these fishes.

 

[Mike Wise]

but to be honest that 2nd picture i'm not even sure it is a female.

My thought was the same when I first saw the photo. There are yellow forms of A. borrelli out there.

 

[Apistoguy52]

My thought was the same when I first saw the photo. There are yellow forms of A. borrelli out there.

Yeah, ^^^ this was kind of my gut reaction too. More/better pictures please

 

[Pudding]

I put the one I've been calling a boy in a breeding net thing so hes in the same tank but separate until I can work out exactly where im moving each fish. I'll redo the tank they are in to look more like the designs you linked MacZ, remove some of the rocks and reposition everything. I have some more driftwood but its not ready to go in a tank yet.
I took some more pictures of the 'female' fish, she is actually bigger than the male, i had thought he was just younger. I hope they aren't both boys....

 

[Apistoguy52]

How large/what size is the supposed “female”? The length of the anal fin in the second picture is really confusing.

 

[Pudding]

I'd say shes closer to 4cm and the male is closer to 3cm? she looks chunkier than him, but shes yellow and hes blue and yellow which is why i assumed the genders. The boy sometimes gets dark trim to the outer edges of its top and tail fin.
Heres some more pictures of the 'female'