Goodeids bullying or breeding?

[Anon]

Hey guys, what do you think my X. doadrioi are doing here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhY2Im5Bql0

They're new to this 10 gallon tank. This lasted about 5 hours before I noticed the male trying to hide. I threw a bunch of hornwort in to help him out. She seems to be frantically searching for him. What do you think is going on?

 

[Fish Folk]

That’s funny! Femme-fatale…

I’m guessing he’s never had to vie for territory before, abs she’s not interested in his advances yet.

You really need more in there.

Here’s when ours started to drop fry…

And here’s a look at the colony once the multiplication really started to take off…

And by this video… things are starting to get out of hand… 😂

You’ll see some derby interaction at the  end there  that is reminiscent of the way your pair is sparing.

 

[Anon]

Thank you for the information! Your colony is beautiful. It helps to see how they act in bigger numbers.

Unfortunately, this is all I have to work with. I found a local fish store that breeds these, but they have very few and would only sell me the pair. It's not a good time to ship fish, either. 

There's so much hornwort in there now I can't see them anymore. Hopefully they can learn to get long. I've had them about a week now.

[Anon]

I wanted to update this post in case somebody finds this on Google someday...

I eventually found 5 juvenile doadrioi and added them to the 10 gallon. This didn't stop my fish from fighting, and I had to divide the tank. This left 6 doadrioi in ~8 gallons of heavily planted water. I saw chasing but thought nothing of it. After about 10 days one of the juveniles had been bullied to death. 

I'm writing this 2 days after switching the rest of the doadrioi to my community 55 gallon. All aggressive behavior stopped within an hour of being switched to a larger tank. I only had them in the 10 gallon because I read they should be in species only tanks. My doadrioi have zero interest so far in the other fish in the 55 gallon.  

I don't recommend keeping this species in a 10 gallon. I had plenty of hiding spaces, but these are big fish and 10 gallons isn't enough room for them to avoid each other for extended periods. I feel terrible about the one that didn't make it. Learn from my mistake.