Should I be worried about my Convict Cichlids?

Question

I bought a pair (a male and female) of convict cichlids a few weeks ago, and they seemed to be getting along fine, and even doing a little nest building together (holing up together inside one of the more spacious caves that I've provided them with in the aquarium as well as digging a pit in the gravel nearby). Lately though, the female seems to have switched her fancies over to the flowerpot on it's side that I also had in the tank, and has been spending a lot of time inside. Yesterday, for an hour or so, I caught her moving gravel away from the lip of the flowerpot, as well as pecking and scraping at the inside surface. At the same time, the male has suddenly turned rather violent towards her, nipping at her fins and chasing her around the tank until she seeks refuge inside the flowerpot again. He sometimes even prevents her from eating, although I try to feed enough in one go so that they don't have to squabble over the same piece. Any time he catches her out of the cave though, he seems like he's out to get her.

The strange thing is, when she's IN the flowerpot, he's a completely different guy. Sometimes he'll join her inside, and occasionally take part in cleaning out the inside surface, the rest of the time courting her by head-shaking and body-slapping her. He'll also puff out his gills, but has never attempted to attack her while she's in the cave. This has been going on for a day or two, and I'm worried that his violence might kill her, although it doesn't seem that it has quite gotten that bad. They both still seem interested in cleaning the flowerpot at this point, so it has me pretty baffled.

I was wondering whether this behavior was normal or dangerous for the fish, and whether they will breed, even under these conditions. Both are healthy-colored (the male a dark, ashy gray with dark black stripes and the female a lighter shade of gray with bold black stripes and a very bright gold/orange belly) and eating well (whenever the female can get the chance to).

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Answer 1

Well, what this really sounds like to me, is the female isn't quite ready to breed yet, and the male is exerting himself on her, so her only recourse to this, is to seek safety of cover.  The male probably sees the pot as a potential breeding spot, and is trying to induce her to mate, which she is not ready to do, and just leaves.  So she comes out, he probably starts thinking, let's bring her over to my spot, she don't wanna go, and bang, starts harassing her.

Sounds like a typical overbearing male to me.  I can only say, the female seems to know where she is safe and should be at least fine keeping to that.  You might want to try adding in more protein heavy food to help her in egg production.  I can also add in here, I do hope you have a rather large tank and other tanks ready because if you do get them to breed, they will keep breeding and breeding, and you will get overrun with Convicts in a short time, if you don't have a plan to deal with and eventually sell off some how, all those fry.

Answer 2

The mating behavior of South American cichlids, a group your convicts belong to, is typically rough and aggressive.  Often the two fish will test each other's suitability as a potential mate by locking jaws and wrestling, making short but quick aggressive displays while facing the other fish and other similar displays.  Sometimes, a fish will be caught off guard or intimidated to the point it turns tail and runs but eventually, the pair will either find themselves well matched or mismatched.  Try not to interfere too much until it is obvious that the fish are hopelessly mismatched.  If the fish decide that they are well matched, all this aggressive behavior will suddenly disappear and I suspect that the worst is already over for your pair.

Your observations and descriptions are spot on for the type of fish you are working with so relax a bit and enjoy the show.  No two fish will act exactly the same way because they are learning all this behavior from instinct and reacting to how the other fish is acting.  Give them time to sort things out.