Ruby red dragonets - courting or fighting? Video link in description!

[exosket]

Ruby red dragonets courting or fighting?? I have never witnessed this behavior from these two before. I’ve had the female for 6+ months and the male ~2 months. They’ve always ignored each other until a few days ago. The female has developed a large stomach which I imagine is full of eggs. In the video, she will grab him by the mouth and drag him around. It’s always her grabbing him and not letting go until we intervene. They keep doing this by the maroon clown pair and while the boy maroon doesn’t mind, the girl is very annoyed and last night, grabbed one of the dragonets and tried to feed her anemone with it. We scared her into dropping the dragonet before she could. What the heck is going on and do we need to separate?

 

 

[Tamberav]

Looks like fighting, the male might be trying to seduce her but she might be rejecting him. His belly looks really skinny, she may not see him as a fit mate. Dragonetts have been known to fight and kill each other even when opposite sex. This is especially so when they are not getting enough food. No energy stores to breed and the other dragonet is competing for the same food source.

 

Clowns can kill fish by feeding them to the nem.