help needed ASAP w/orchid dottyback

[dan pannell]

Last night I added 2 orchid dottybacks to my 20 gallon tank. They are lesss than 2", I would guess about 6 mo. old. These fish have never been together before last night. They were fine this morning other than occasionaly snapping at each other.
My concern is that they both are in a spawning den that I built out of PVC pipe. They went in there together this morning and I was concerned so I pulled the end caps off the PVC to see what they were doing. They seem to both be crammed in the closed end of the PVC end cap. They appeared to be OK. They went right back in here. Is this normal behavior or am I being paranoid? I don't want to lose a fish while they are settling in.

[FMarini]

Dan:
please stop worrying. If they hate each other, one will drive th eothr away. If they are paring up, don't disturb them. Fish are kinda smart in that they usually don't want to be hurt, so they'll do whatever it take.
Let them settle in for the next couple of days, and don't screw w/ them unless you see fighting.
My opinion
frank

[dan pannell]

Thanks Frank. An update... They are out and about in the tank now. One fish is definately establishing himself(?) as dominant. He has been nipping at the other fish and chases her(?) off anytime she approaches "his" side of the tank. If these were clowns, I would assume this is normal. I am still a little worried as the "female" fish is taking some abuse and has some torn fins. I haven't been able to find much info on the pairing rituals of dottybacks. If anyone has experience, please post a reply. As an aside, I have read Moe's book a couple of times, he doesn't spend much time on broodstock pairing.