This might be old hat to some but it's the first time I've witnessed this most interesting behaviour. After 24 hours of introducing the male into the tank and which was after a 10% water change, I noticed the female was really aggressive. About 12 hours after I took the pictures above I noticed the tail fin of the male was really chewed up. The female has staked out an area in the rear of the tank under the drift wood and kept the male far away who cowered out of sight under some plants. I fed them a little food which they both ate. Then I noticed the male started to rotate 45 degrees one way and back. He did this several times and then the female came out from the rear of the tank to take a look. She started to rotate sideways and back too and then they started to chase each other. One would lead and then the other would lead. The male would also do a shimmy movement. Then the female did a most interesting move - she kind of skipped sideways in the water and then very quickly would return. I've never seen a fish do that before. Every once in a while they would twirl around together. The female was very aggressive and after her movements would swim toward the male kind of like seeing how the male was reacting. One time she got a hold of the long rays of the male's dorsal fin and wouldn't let go. The male swam away with the female still hanging on. At least 5 seconds went by and once she released, she'd bitten off some of it. I left to let them do their thing because the light was about to turn off for the night. I'm assuming this is normal mating behaviour?
