A few months ago I bought a 60 liter (15-16 gallon) tank and stocked it with neon tetras and danio rerio. A month ago I bought a cockatoo male and 1-2 weeks later a female. Everything went well until I got the female cockatoo. When I first put the female in the tank the male seemed interested and was following her around. After a couple of days this changed however and he started to hide behind the pump. This has now been going on for two weeks and he spends almost all his time hiding behind the pump.
At feeding time he does come out to eat and from what I can tell there seems to be nothing physically wrong with him. When the female sees him she approaches him and appears to be courting him but he flees every time to go hiding behind the pump. Based on googling pictures I think the female is fully grown and the male is not, since they are pretty much the same size. The female is maybe a tiny bit larger.
All of the fish except for the male cockatoo seem to be doing just fine. There are several caves and plants in the tank. At first I thought they had spawned since the female was guarding a particular cave but now she spends most of her time swimming around. The male never hid like this before the female came around and the fact that he has been hiding behind the pump for about two weeks now makes me a bit worried.
At feeding time he does come out to eat and from what I can tell there seems to be nothing physically wrong with him. When the female sees him she approaches him and appears to be courting him but he flees every time to go hiding behind the pump. Based on googling pictures I think the female is fully grown and the male is not, since they are pretty much the same size. The female is maybe a tiny bit larger.
All of the fish except for the male cockatoo seem to be doing just fine. There are several caves and plants in the tank. At first I thought they had spawned since the female was guarding a particular cave but now she spends most of her time swimming around. The male never hid like this before the female came around and the fact that he has been hiding behind the pump for about two weeks now makes me a bit worried.