Yesterday we played a bit of musical tanks/tubs. The two pearlscales got out of QT and into the big tank, pig got demoted to a 20 gal tub till it is warm enough at night to put him into the pond. Things were pretty calm yesterday in the big tank, everyone just swimming around and getting used to each other. This morning I woke up at about 6:30 and velvet, my black moor, was chasing the female pearlie around the tank constantly. Maybe every 5 minutes or so he would switch over to the other female for about 10 seconds or so before heading right back to the pearlscale. He is still chasing her non stop.

How long does this usually go on before they lay eggs/stop? And at what point do I need to seperate the two if it keeps up?

Even food would not deter velvet, he took two quick bites on the run and went back to chasing. He has gone from the mellow "whatever" type of fish, to something that acts like he had 5 cups of coffee too many this morning.

P.S. Iv'e seen more fish acrobatics in the last hour than in the whole three years I have had fish. Oh, and I can now see why people would have a bare tank for breeding.

this kind of behavior can last a long time. mine chassed each other for weeks until she droped her eggs. sometimes depending on the temp they can just stop just like that. be patient and soon you will get eggs.

What if the male in question is chasing an immature female with NO eggs? Does that even happen? Will he chase an immature fem, or only ones that are fertile?
I suspect this is happening to mine and that Poppi will get harassed to death. Should I separate them? probably, huh?

In the past, before the pearlies got added, velvet would chase my other telescope around for 10-15 seconds at a time then go do something else for an hour or two. I am guestimating that she is only about a year old as we got her really tiny last fall. The female pearlscale is at least 2 years old and showed signs of reabsorbing some eggs during her time in quarantine. I suspect that velvet has figured out that the pearlie is more "mature" and ready to breed and this is why he is so much more intense with the new female.

Well you can never really know if a female has eggs or not all you can really judge is if she is fat you could then think she is full of eggs. On the other hand they could just be playing that determines if they are small fish or big fish. Can you please tell us what size it is and maybe you should post this as a new topic so more people can help you. But I think you should wait a bit longer to see if they will have eggs or not because I thought mine were breeding but it only happened for a few days and then they stopped.