Blue ram, aggression ?

[sakana]

Within the last day or so the behavior of my male ram has changed. From the occasional "get out of the way" chase to rally racing through the tank after the female. Is this a mating behavior or just aggression? Possibly detrimental to the female?

Thank you

 

[electric eel]

is it possible that there are eggs somewhere in the tank?i have only ever had one instance of extreme aggression with a pair of rams and it involved eggs/fry.the male tore the female up pretty bad while the eggs were being incubated.i thought he was going to kill her.should have pulled her but i had 3 other pairs set up and no place to put her.suprisingly after the fry freeswam she rallied and was very aggressive and kept the male behind the sponge filter until i pulled the fry.they went on to spawn several more times with no problems other then minor posturing.also is your water quality good and are they wellfed.i've had aggression problems with other fish especially angels and riftlake cichlids if i let the water quality get bad. are you quite sure it is a pair and not 2 males or 2 females.chasing of the female is pretty normal(sometimes they are very peaceful towards each other though) but it usually does'nt get too extreme they are pretty peaceful for cichlids but they are cichlids.

 

[sakana]

No eggs. Pretty sure that I have one male and one female. I wonder about the water quality, nitrates were up around 40ppm before I did a 50% water change. Then the agression. Maybe it was the water change. I moved the ram into a tank with pea puffers (no where else to move him for the moment). Since then he has lost a few bits of fin, looks less orange, and the round black marking has dissapered from his for-head. The female has had a chance to eat, the clown killie has some more color and the small three dot barbs are making themselves seen a little more. We decided to get another tank for the rams really soon after the male was moved. Maybe there just was not enough room.