Is this unusual behavior?

[gwand]

My 20 gallon long South American tank is home to 10 Glowlight tetras and a trio of Apistogramma cacatuoides, orange morph. It is a heavily planted tanks with three coconut caves. The GH is 115 ppm, pH 6.3 and water temperature 77F. The male cacatuoides is quite gentle. I never witnessed him badgering the females or the tetras. But I rarely see the two females. Both females disappeared a month ago. I assumed they were dead. But one of the females showed herself this morning looking in excellent condition. Now she is hiding again. I still have not seen the other female. For those of you who follow my posts, the trio are offspring of Mohawk Man of blessed memory.

 

[GaryE]

Sometimes you have to rearrange things a bit to get sightlines into what they're doing.

I've long avoided trios with dwarf Cichlids, Apistogramma included, because females are territorial and that doesn't always end well. Even our larger tanks are a fraction of what they've evolved to deal with, and they can kill each other in defence of their breeding territories.

 

[gwand]

I have not seen the second female in a long time. So in fact, I may have just a pair lol. But I thought it was you who told me to go with a trio after Mohawk Man killed his mate. The thought was to spread out the aggression.

 

[GaryE]

Nope, not me unless I typed too fast and left 'don't' out. It's a serious debate among dwarf Cichlid keepers. The older literature talks of males with harems, which I think isn't legit. The old school experts didn't pay enough attention to how females were really behaving, and I don't think they understood female territories. I have no idea why a bunch of old guys in the sixties would have looked at things that way....
I think both sexes have territories, which can overlap. Males exclude males, females exclude females, and if she likes the male, they spawn. If she doesn't, she can kill him.