. Is this likely to work out or would I be condemning him to a live of bachelorhood (or spinsterhood, depending... I suppose I could always get her a school of dwarf petricola cats if she ends up alone)?
My thoughts are that it won't work as well as you would like. First off, you are assuming that your first singleton goby will be a good breeder, of decent stock and genetics, and will accept a partner from among the juveniles later. Either way, it will out-compete younger/smaller gobies that may be better choices from which a pair should form. You essentially take away the choice from the other gobies. My experience has been that forced pairs do not behave as well as those formed from a group of equals.
My male gobies have outlived their female partners. Right now I've got two old widowers whom I don't trust with younger gobies. I reintroduced a female who had previously bred with the male in my avatar after his partner died, the three were a trio for about six months. But the widowed male bred with the 2nd female and then killed her. I hadn't anticipated losing all my breeding females, and so have been conservative with my growing juveniles, because they just wouldn't stand a chance against the older, larger, smarter males if they decided to be nasty.
My male gobies have outlived their female partners. Right now I've got two old widowers whom I don't trust with younger gobies. I reintroduced a female who had previously bred with the male in my avatar after his partner died, the three were a trio for about six months. But the widowed male bred with the 2nd female and then killed her. I hadn't anticipated losing all my breeding females, and so have been conservative with my growing juveniles, because they just wouldn't stand a chance against the older, larger, smarter males if they decided to be nasty.
