Showing off to female or aggression towards sneaker male?

[Stripes]

Hi! I recently got a pair of A. Viejita (actually A. Macmasteri) and I can’t tell if the male is showing of to a female or if that female is a sneaker male and the dominant male is chasing him off. The dominant male will swim up to the smaller apisto and flare his fins and chase the smaller one similar to courtship behavior. I can’t tell if the smaller apisto is a male or female though. Can one of you more experienced keepers tell me what is happening? The first pic is dominant male and the second is of the smaller fish. Thank you for your time.

 

[Hapisto]

I think, both are males.

 

[Mike Wise]

Second photo is not good enough to say one way or the other.

 

[Stripes]

I got some better pictures. I managed to catch the dominant male showing off/harassing the smaller fish.

 

[Stripes]

Also, I don’t know why but the images look very pixelated and blurry in the preview but if you click on them they look fine.

 

[MacZ]

Problem is, as many other domestic Apistogramma, the domestic variants of A. macmasteri also have much more colourful females than the wild type. So it is possible the less colourful fish is a female. In any case, though: If it is a female, she's not ready to breed. Obvious by the lack of bright yellow colouration. This means the male would not display to initce spawning, but try to get her out of his territory, just as he would with another male.

 

[Stripes]

Problem is, as many other domestic Apistogramma, the domestic variants of A. macmasteri also have much more colourful females than the wild type. So it is possible the less colourful fish is a female. In any case, though: If it is a female, she's not ready to breed. Obvious by the lack of bright yellow colouration. This means the male would not display to initce spawning, but try to get her out of his territory, just as he would with another male.

Ok, well I guess I will find out sooner or later when they decide to spawn. Thanks for the info.