Oscar started chasing Lola this morning, and it's going on non-stop. I've already seen Lola spawn this morning (right place at the right time! that was cool!). How long will Oscar chase her for? How many times can she release her eggs? Does this mean that having a male and female together in the same tank will keep a female from getting egg-bound? When should I be concerned that Oscar is bothering her too much? Lola can barely eat her breakfast because Oscar is being quite bothersome. How can I tell if she is too stressed?

I can't see any breeding stars on Oscar, but he is definately nipping on her bottom constantly, and even stopping for a moment to chase the other fish briefly before returning to Lola. I haven't had any fluctuation in temperature, so I thought I would never see breeding behaivor. I guess that's wrong.

I'm sorry for all the questions, but I'm late for work now, and I'm worried about Lola's welfare. I appreciate any help I can get. Thank you in advance!!

Oscar will chase her whenever he pleases - whether or not she is ready to release eggs. But in general, he will only chase her aggressively when she has eggs.

She can release another batch tomorrow or next week. She will most likely release more eggs for the next..... maybe 8 weeks - every once in a while. Some fish do it every day for a week and then quit. Others will wait 5-10 days and do it again. She may release just a few every day or 1000s at each spawning.

Having a male in the tank will not necessarily guarantee that your female will not become egg bound, but it does help.

If you want to give her a break, float her in a collandar or plastic basket or bucket. She is in the same tank, you can feed her separately and she can rest when she needs it. Make sure there is no sharp mold flashing on the basket/collander to catch and tear fins. For particularly delicate finned females and aggressive males, I have left the females in the collander - the eggs fall through the slits, the males still fertilize them, but they cannot rip those gorgeous fins bodyslamming the female into the tank sides!

Here's a couple videos, although the intensity relaxed after about an hour, he was still following her around:

(bad quality, sorry bout that)
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v107/int...=Picture047.flv
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v107/int...=Picture046.flv

My DH says Augustus is bothering her now too. He's not very old yet though - is that more learned behaivor now from watching Oscar?

Thank you for your help, and the suggestion. We're trying to figure something out now. Oscar is not chasing her anymore, so that's good. But I'm sure he'll be back soon enough. This is all new to me! But kind of exciting! My babies are growing up. We really don't want any fry though. I was explaining to my DS that the fish will probably eat the eggs, and he was fascinated by that.