Fish stress and breeding

Hi Everyone. Please may I have some advice around fish stress and fish breeding. I will elaborate further by what I have experienced recently and welcome suggestions / advice on how to overcome this challenge I recently experienced. I currently have a 920lt community tank with twelve red spotted deacons (severums) , common pleco and a ghost knife. Two of the severums have paired off and have layed eggs previously , which was eaten by day two by the parents. I then decided to move the pair to there own breeder tank , a four foot tank in my patio. After moving the pair , I could see they were highly stressed , always hiding , not eating , breathing heavy , and even losing some of there color.
I kept the tank dark by covering it but they were really battling with stress. My water was similar in both tanks as the only conditioner I add is Prime and temperature was also similar. Three days after moving them and the pair not adjusting well at all , I have decided to move the pair back to the 920lt community tank where thy are thriving again and full of life. What am I doing wrong

 

Moving them stresses them out. They take some time to get settled in a new tank and they if they feel comfortable enough then they will breed. I've had the same with my angel fish. It took them a month to get settled and they they started breeding.

 

@Kiaan26 How long did they take to get settled in the new tank ? and is there anything I can do to help them settle in and reduce the stress ?

 

Took them a week to settle. The tank had alot of visual blocks, planted tank, so that might have helped. I've notice bigger fish take longer to settled in a new tank as well. Were they eating in the other tank?

 

They eat really well in the community tank but were not eating in the for three days straight in the breeding tank ....hence I was really worried and moved them back to the community tank.

 

Had the same issue when moving arowanas and oscars. They wouldn't eat for a week but after a week they went back to eating. Had an arowana that didn't eat for 3 weeks before they took food again. If your fish are healthy they can go without food for a week and half without issues.