Is my Firefish ready to lay eggs?

[Moruca]

Hello all,

I’ve had this firefish for almost 4 years now. It’s always been active and has a healthy appetite. About 6 months ago, I introduced a pistol shrimp and a yellow watchman goby, and surprisingly the firefish seemed to pair up with them and began sharing their cave. Since then, the firefish mostly only comes out during feeding time.
Last week, I added a second firefish. Since introducing the new one, I’ve noticed that usually only one firefish comes out at a time unless it’s feeding time. They are both eating, and I feed once a day with mysis shrimp and pellets (although my firefish strongly prefer mysis and usually ignore pellets)
Recently, I noticed one of the firefish looks noticeably fatter than the other. Other than adding the new firefish, nothing else in the tank has changed. I’ve also observed them following each other around, and the larger/fatter one will occasionally nudge or lightly push the other underneath/aside.
My first thought is that this could just be feeding dominance or establishing hierarchy between the two firefish, but I wanted to see what you all think or if anyone has experienced similar behavior

 

[Tahoe61]

The fire fish definitely looks thicker. You really don't see much about fire fish spawning. Both of yours are out and about at the same time and not fighting, that's a very good sign.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/firefish-breeding.179943/