Eventually the pair was moved into a 75-gallon tank and surplus individuals sold. The pair has stayed together ever since and the more elusive, smaller female is rarely visible, whereas the larger male can be seen vigorously displaying and defending the cave entrance.
This fish can be considered rather shy, whereas the closely related
Fighting was observed daily between individual leleupi especially during feeding times when they would leave the shelter of their isolated rocky crevasses. From the original colony of four juveniles, only one was male. After two unsuccessful breeding attempts, the dominate female killed her mate. The subdominant females were sold and an adult show male (shown bottom) was purchased, however he did not accept her and she was killed within two weeks.
Later, another set of 5 five unsexed, juvenile leleupi were added. These young fish slowly matured to breeding size within one year, at which point the original adult show male selected a new female. Once a breeding pair was identified, the surplus leleupi were removed to isolate the pair. The leleupi was observed with similar nesting habits of the cylindricus in that the male and female resided within different caves. In the first unsuccessful breeding attempted, the female's nest was immediately adjacent to the male's cave. The clutch numbered over 150 eggs, however severe predation from other tank mates caused the destruction of the nest within a week. The male grew intolerant of the female and aggressively evicted her from the nest. One month later, the female was found nesting two feet away from the male's cave and the male extended his territory to cover the new nest. Again severe predation destroyed the nest and again the male aggressively evicted her from the nest however this time, she did not survive his harassment and was found dead within a week.
In summary, the major differences between these two examples were that mate selection was not diverse enough in such a small colony and with a more aggressive mobile species, a larger number of individuals is necessary for success.