GBR courting behavior?

Hello all. I have had one female German Blue Ram for about 6 months now, and she is now mature. She's been the only Ram in the tank until last night, when I brought home a somewhat juvenile male and placed him in the tank. I already know there is no guarantee they will "hook up" and mate. And honestly, my purpose is not to breed them but rather just to get some more social behaviors out of them and to get the female to stop chasing the other tankmates so much (she never hurts them, just charges at them).

So last night and today they seem to be courting, but I'm not sure and wanted to get feedback from forum members. I've seen GBRs after pairing up and getting ready to lay eggs on a flat rock, and my pair aren't doing that (it's not even been 24 hours yet!). But the female seems to sort of present herself in sideways profile while "leaning over" on her side at maybe a 30* angle and being very still like this. Then the two sometimes get really close and sometimes head-to-tail. Then at other times the male or female will seem to chase the other away. This chasing thing may have to do with the young male not knowing fully what to do yet. The female definitely intensified the pink on her belly almost as soon as I placed the bag with the new fish in the tank. So is this courtship behavior, or just territory marking, or what?

Heh, yeah that would be a bit of a giveaway, huh? I guess I'll get back to the thread if/when I get an answer.

Just an update. The chasing behavior seems to be worse when the tank light is on. And she's not just chasing the male, she's chasing the four corys all over as well. Then, when the light is off I usually find both rams sitting still and close to each other near a rock. BTW, this rock has a flat top where I would assume they'd want to lay eggs if it ever came to that. But she doesn't just chase fish away from that rock - she stalks them everywhere. Good thing is she never seems to nip or injure the others in any way. So I still don't know what the hell they're doing, and I'm not sure they do, either.

Another update to the saga. Well things have reversed such that now the male seems to be chasing the female! He's noticeably grown in the short time we've had him and I think he got sick of the bullying and discovered that he can push back. I saw them locking jaws once and wasn't backing down. So now I'm actually starting to wonder if he's going to hound my female to death. On the plus side, they both seem to be leaving their non-Ram tankmates alone.

I've thought about it. It's going to have to wait until I upsize the tank, though. I don't want to cram too many Rams into a 20g community tank.

DavidZ said:

Get one more female and see what happens.

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I've got everybody in the 29g tank now. The male is still chasing the female around, never actually nipping but constantly harrassing. Is there a consensus that I should try adding a second female?