Cardinalfish divorce???

[ReefNewbie12]

My banggai cardinalfish pair was fairly happy for a while, they even had a brood a few days ago (The male swallowed said clutch today though, could this be related?), first I noticed the female hiding and thought little of it but just now I had caught the male chasing her around, I then tried to get him into a floating breeders box as a timeout but failed and didn’t want to stress him out too much. Does anyone know what is happening? They had definitely been a pair so this doesn’t make any sense, are they splitting up? What do I do?
I didn’t want to emergency tag this since it wasn’t an emergency per se, but I don’t think I can really wait on an answer, the female’s dorsal fins are already torn up a bit and I fear it may end up being one or the other soon.

 

[ReefNewbie12]

Bump, the male came out of hiding and forced the female up to the top again, she was sitting in the top corner and breathing rapidly, I should’ve gone for her instead but went for the male again, who hid, the female has also hid by now.

 

[ReefNewbie12]

Bump

 

[ReefNewbie12]

Bump

 

[ReefRy]

I'll try to help as I can since no one with more knowledge has responded so far...

I've got 3 pajama cardinal that take turns hating each other. They chase each other around all day long, from one corner to another. So far (6 months), I haven't really seen any adverse effects. That's not to say that won't change, but I've never really considered intervening.

As for banggais, I only have one and that is not by accident. They have a reputation for aggression toward one another and I've found that they're best kept singley or, if you really want more than one, in larger shoals, like 5 or 7.

Having said that, if it were me I'd let nature take its course unless you're certain one is about to die. The stress of netting the fish added to the actual injuries often caused by the net and/or chasing the fish around the tank make it counterproductive at best and negligent at worst to try to catch them.

Hopefully someone that knows a bit more will chime in, but that's my two cents.

 

[vetteguy53081]

similar to clownfish, a brooding male will be aggressive towards females as they rarely do well in pairs. You may have to isolate the male into an acclimation box giving it a Time Out session for a few days

 

[ReefNewbie12]

similar to clownfish, a brooding male will be aggressive towards females as they rarely do well in pairs. You may have to isolate the male into an acclimation box giving it a Time Out session for a few days

My main issue with this having been related to brooding is because the male had already swallowed the brood by this point, I get that “just yesterday they were hanging out like a pair” isn’t really applicable because fish can change on a dime, but the female wasn’t hiding about yesterday either to be fair.