I have some amazingly excellent news
I decided today while I was going through my water change procedure that I was really comfortable with how everyone was interacting with lovely little Hawkette through the container, so to the immensely epic music of the fight scene between Darth Maul and Qui-Gon (Duel of the Fates) (my brother's idea lol) I opened the side door of the container so that she could get out in her own time
Aannndd.. the best thing happened!! She swam over to sit on the magnet cleaner and as soon as Hawk Hawkins noticed he was right over there, no aggression AT ALL so the first 30 seconds of their lives in the same tank was spent interacting, plenty of brushing against each other and she fell straight into a subordinate position as Hawk Hawkins is twice her size and didn't even need to do anything to establish dominance
They're spending a bit of time now (been in the tank about an hour) sitting together and cosying up to each other and perching together. Hawk Hawkins seems happier too just in general now that there's a female with him not that he was ever an unhappy fish
She's happily doing her own thing in the tank but likes to swim up to him or be able to see him so far I'm really hoping this means nothing but good things!!
Here's some terrible phone pics of them together on the magnet cleaner
I decided today while I was going through my water change procedure that I was really comfortable with how everyone was interacting with lovely little Hawkette through the container, so to the immensely epic music of the fight scene between Darth Maul and Qui-Gon (Duel of the Fates) (my brother's idea lol) I opened the side door of the container so that she could get out in her own time
Aannndd.. the best thing happened!! She swam over to sit on the magnet cleaner and as soon as Hawk Hawkins noticed he was right over there, no aggression AT ALL so the first 30 seconds of their lives in the same tank was spent interacting, plenty of brushing against each other and she fell straight into a subordinate position as Hawk Hawkins is twice her size and didn't even need to do anything to establish dominance
They're spending a bit of time now (been in the tank about an hour) sitting together and cosying up to each other and perching together. Hawk Hawkins seems happier too just in general now that there's a female with him not that he was ever an unhappy fish
She's happily doing her own thing in the tank but likes to swim up to him or be able to see him so far I'm really hoping this means nothing but good things!!
Here's some terrible phone pics of them together on the magnet cleaner