Apistogramma Agassizi Courtship Behaviour

[kaitlyn19]

Okay so I understand a bit about there courtship behaviour. I know the female is suppose to approach the male when shes ready, flash her fins, show her belly etc... But my male is the one doing this and the females will join him sometimes and the other times they will run away.

He comes at them, fins upright and flashes them, also shows his belly towards them. He Flashes his tale so hard that it pushes them away sometimes. When he does this the 1 female I have in there will flash her fins back and show her belly but nothing happens after that. they just stare each other down and then she will swim away. When he does this to the 2nd female I have, she usually just swims away.
Is he trying to court with them or is he harassing them? I bought all these as breeding age off a breeder in Windsor, so they should be of breeding age. The female that's more into it is rather small, but she has all her colours and is pretty yellow. The other is about a cm bigger

 

[Mike Wise]

Well, your male is acting normally - introducing himself to any female that swims into his territory. If a female is interested in breeding, she will remain; if not she will swim away. It seems that Female 2 isn't ready to breed. Female 1 seems to be interested at the start. She is showing submission and wants to remain. But for some reason the 2 fish don't seem to be 'hitting it off'. Do you ever see the male circle either female while 'rippling' it dorsal fin? This is typical male courtship after his fin-flaring introduction. He may be too intimidating for the female and she decides leave. I think you'll need to give them some time.

 

[kaitlyn19]

Well, your male is acting normally - introducing himself to any female that swims into his territory. If a female is interested in breeding, she will remain; if not she will swim away. It seems that Female 2 isn't ready to breed. Female 1 seems to be interested at the start. She is showing submission and wants to remain. But for some reason the 2 fish don't seem to be 'hitting it off'. Do you ever see the male circle either female while 'rippling' it dorsal fin? This is typical male courtship after his fin-flaring introduction. He may be too intimidating for the female and she decides leave. I think you'll need to give them some time.

Yes I do see the male do that. I think they need more time as well. The females are new to the tank and I don't believe have ever bred before, but he has. He is so ready lol its funny. But yes I think both females need a little bit more time. If in time female 2 is still the same I will take her back out to the 80 gal and introduce a new female. I don't want her life a living hell lol. Good news though, I was hoping the male wasn't being to pushy. I think he just gets a little too excited and it frightens female 1 cause she does seem interested but then he will flash his fins so hard that it pushes her away lol. Thanks for the responce

 

[kaitlyn19]

Wow just realised I put agassizi instead of cacatuodies.. don't know how that happened. Similar courtship anyways so no big deal. Anyways they both ended up laying eggs but they don't look fertilized to me. The first batch we had didn't look fertized, some of them went white and fuzzy and then they were all gone the next day. So we bought some methane blue to help things.
Second and third batch (current ones) again didn't look fertilized to me.. I don't know weather the male is or not, he is so eager to breed I don't know why he wouldn't be. So the female 1's eggs were all gone 2 days later, no sign of fungus this time though and female 2's eggs remain there, last checked was yesterday and we will be doing a big water change today to get rid of the methane blue. Is this just a case of inexperienced females? Are the eggs suppose to be bright orange or like a skin colour? Cause they seem to be a skin colour, not white but the slightest pink or yellow. Thanks all