firemouth and green terror breeding ?s

Question
I just had my first fire mouth hatch my male is smaller (the small one is much brighter and has a long whispy dorsal fin) but a great parent compared to the bigger femal. the fry are about 5 days old and the male constantly kept bitting and fighting with the female while being a good parent... i took the bigger one out of the tank to lessen the stress, will that harm the pairing process for a later spawn? and how long can i leave the male in the tank before he starts eating the fry?
also if you have time i know that the males chase and bite the females in the firemouths but what about green terrors i have 2 of them as well the smaller more colorful i think is male blue bottom fins the other was same size tank temp raised she plumped upand grew larger now the two fight are they pairing off you think? and how abusive is too abusive towards to paired off fish?
thanks for any info you can provide  

Answer
Hi Justin,
 Sorry for the delay in answering -- I was out of town.

Separating the fish may make it harder for them to spawn again, but not necessarily.  
I typically leave the kids with the parents for about a month or so.  

Green terrors, like any cichlid, test each other before mating. They do this by fighting.  If each can stand up to the other, that is a good sign and they may mate. If one is too weak and backs down, the other usually tries to chase it away.  My general rule is that as long as two fish are facing each other when they fight, even lip-locking and tearing, that is fine. The problems come when one fish is simply chasing the other, and the other is constantly trying to get away.  At that point, you need to separate them or the one being chased is going to get killed rather quickly.

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
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