Day One

When I checked out Casper this morning, his torn fin looked a little worst with a small red spot by the tear. My gut instinct was telling me not to breed him today, so I went ahead and set up Neptune in the breeding tank instead. I put Neptune in a bag and Rain in a jar and let them adjust to the water temp, then released Neptune so he could check out his mate and start working on his bubble nest.

He was doing everything he was supposed to at first: flare and wag around at the female, then swim over and work on his bubble nest. But after about 5 hours there was very little progress to the bubble nest. Neptune had been working on it the whole time, with short intervals of rushing up to Rain's jar to flare at her, but he had been so excited I noticed he kept popping part of the nest. I wasn't sure if I should leave Rain in her jar until the nest was more 'complete' or release her to see if that would improve anything. By the 6th hour, I decided to release her. She seemed pretty mad. The first thing she did was chase away Neptune and destroy his puny little bubble nest. Then she hid for a little while, but Neptune was in hiding too. I was beginning to worry she was going to be too aggressive for him, but then he came out and chased her around. They did this off and on for a while, but there was no more nest building. At this point I was getting pretty stressed out by the lack of a bubble nest. I think it would have been best if I had introduced them in the evening and given Neptune overnight with the lights off to build his nest. So after an hour or so of them chasing each other I decided to change things up again. I removed some of the water, because it was deeper than it really needed to be (over 4"), I removed the pot that was supposed to serve as a hiding place for Rain (which she never used), and I added fresh Indian Almond leaves. Then I used a hurricane glass to trap Rain again so that Neptune could start thinking about a new bubble nest. Rain had a few tears in her anal fin, but I didn't see any damage on Neptune. I then fed them, but only Rain was interested in the food (she ate quite a bit). After removing the unwanted food, I put the cover back on and shut off the lights for the night. Neptune is now working on a new nest in the back corner of the tank under one of the Indian Almond leaves. I'm hoping by morning he has a nice big nest ready, but I'm a little worried because the leaf is starting to sink :( Hopefully the bubble nest is able to hold it up once it's completed.
Here's a short video clip of some courtship behavior between Neptune and Rain: