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ortegai

Mike Wise

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At that size the sexes are not really sexable, visually - unless they are stunted. There may be some behavioral clues, males being more dominant but this isn't always 100% accurate.
 

TCMontium

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Germany, Kassel
I have bred A. cf. ortegai and the males were “really colorful” already at around 14 weeks of age (2,5-3,5 cm). Males were obvious by that time from colors and behavior, in my experience, but I guess sneaker males would be a possibility if you have too many males in a small area. Furthermore, I didn‘t have even a single female from that batch because the temperature was 27-28 C and pH was less than 6,4 (probably 5,0-5,5, my test didn't have a color chart for below 6,4 at that time but was yellow-orange colored, later a different test showed 5,0 or 5,5). So, I wouldn’t know if a female would/could look like “an obvious female” by around 3 cm (or at 14 weeks of age), it’s just that my males were so colorful, especially at the fins, that I can’t imagine a female looking that colorful. Also, probably high temperatures had a role in early color/sexual development, but I don’t know for sure.
Most of my males had colorful dorsal fins and yellow coloration at their pelvic fins by the time they were 1-1,5 cm (6 weeks old), but some did still have dull colors and could be females or sneaker/undeveloped males (they indeed turned out to be all males). By the time they were 2-3 cm (11-12 weeks old), the dorsal, anal and pelvic fin colorations of all males were “male like” and their face and body could have intense blue coloration (not every one of them did have the intense blue coloration on the face and body, and not all the time either). Do/Can females have those colorations at their dorsal and pelvic fins by 6 weeks of age or 1,5 cm total length? Or better yet, at 11 weeks / 2-3 cm TL? I have no idea.
By the way, black coloration of the front area of the pelvic fins can be found in young males too as you will see in the photos, so that isn't a key indicator for early sexing, but maybe it still is important if ALL females at a young age also have black coloration at the front area of their pelvic fins.

I did have females in another batch but the fish in that batch might have been stunted or maybe they just developed very slowly because the temperature was 23-24 Celcius. They were less than or at 1 cm long by 7 weeks of age and they had no sexual differences that I could observe, unlike the previous batch that grew in much warmer temperatures and were all males. I didn’t observe the sexual differences by age after that point in that batch. The person I gave 4 of the “unsexed” (at 3 months old? 1,5 cm? I don’t remember clearly) juveniles grew them and had 1 female and 3 males. The person contacted me when they were 9-10 months old, she looked like 3-3,5 cm long and males looked like they were 4-5 cm long. I don’t know when they started showing obvious sexual differences. The female had the coloration of a yellow adult female by that time.

(the ages and sizes I give aren't when they started showing the mentioned traits, they are just the ages and sizes from the dates when I observed them closely and have taken their photos)

Photographs of first batch (all males):


- less than or at 1 cm, 3 weeks old, unsexable for me at this time:

28063369672_d222e58bae_b.jpg

28063475212_79cfbc9eb9_b.jpg



- 1,5 cm sexable males with colorful fins and 1 cm unsexable male without fin coloration, 6 weeks old:

28483273322_ec1ef57050_b.jpg

27974112043_20a9cc344d_b.jpg

28511534441_04444e31bf_b.jpg

28557196146_58d8199fc3_b.jpg



- sexable males at 2-3 cm with all colorful fins (and starting head coloration?), 11 weeks old:

29409774872_6d27d0c9d8_b.jpg

28896515673_af2f538c2f_b.jpg



- sexable males at 2,5 to 3,5 cm with all colorful fins and some males (the ones that are over 3 cm, I noted) with intense blue body and head coloration, 14 weeks old (all 4 photos are of the ones over 3 cm, if I'm not mistaken):

29742512960_354cb3e3d5_b.jpg

29742501880_6498e8dd9e_b.jpg

29929483922_94d5f66a63_b.jpg

29416079713_c6c2563251_b.jpg
 
Last edited:

TCMontium

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179
Location
Germany, Kassel
Photographs of the second spawn that had at least one female (23-24 Celcius, pH 5,0-5,5):

- First 2 photos are from 7 weeks of age, looks like they were 1 cm long and they weren’t sexable to me at all! Males in the first spawn were mostly bigger and most (except the smallest few) already started to show male coloration at this age (not this size, just this age)
- Last photo (a screenshot containing 2 photos) is from when they grew to be 9-10 months old, one of them is a clear female (looks like 3-3,5 cm?) and others are clearly relatively large obvious males (looks like 4-5 cm?)
 

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Happyfins

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Messages
93
Location
Sydney
thank you for replys.
TC Montium: thanks for pics. I bought a "pair" of very young fish. they don't look like yours really. they don't look like anything else that I have come across. they seem to be quite striped. A bit like yours on the 8th picture but more pronounced. Some might say" Are you sure they are apistogramma?" and yes I am. You mentioned yours were cf ortegai. I doubt we get much cf of anything here in Australia. i suspect they might be ortegai as aopposed to cf ortegai.

Mike Wise: one is bigger and more dominant. guess that could be a clue toward sexes. Often in Australia fish are sold as pairs and end up only being one sex so I wouldn't be surprised if they both turn out to be female in view of above photos.

I wish I was better at taking decent pics. It would make everything so much easier.
 

TCMontium

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
179
Location
Germany, Kassel
thank you for replys.
TC Montium: thanks for pics. I bought a "pair" of very young fish. they don't look like yours really. they don't look like anything else that I have come across. they seem to be quite striped. A bit like yours on the 8th picture but more pronounced. Some might say" Are you sure they are apistogramma?" and yes I am. You mentioned yours were cf ortegai. I doubt we get much cf of anything here in Australia. i suspect they might be ortegai as aopposed to cf ortegai.

Mike Wise: one is bigger and more dominant. guess that could be a clue toward sexes. Often in Australia fish are sold as pairs and end up only being one sex so I wouldn't be surprised if they both turn out to be female in view of above photos.

I wish I was better at taking decent pics. It would make everything so much easier.

If the male has orange/yellow and purple/red in the caudal fin, then they are A. ortegai as far as I know (are there any other similar species with a similar caudal fin coloration? A species in eunotus-complex maybe? I don’t know), but pronounced vertical bars sound suspicious. I don’t remember Pebas-subcomplex species showing the vertical bars often, but it could just be due to stress I suppose. The 2-3 cm male in my 8th photo shows pronounced vertical bars, but that isn’t a permenant display and males of that size should show colorful dorsal and pelvic fins at the very least as my experience goes, maybe A. ortegai color development is really that different from A. cf. ortegai? Maybe young females of Pebas-subcomplex can have pronounced vertical bars? I have never seen a young female (I gave my female juveniles away at 1,5 cm or so), so someone who did see young females’ coloration develop should answer that.
I think it would be helpful if you could take some pictures of both of your fish, even if they are “not decent” they might help with identification.
 

Happyfins

Member
Messages
93
Location
Sydney
Above is the more dominant fish also larger. Didn't get any pics of the other but have separated them and will follow up. To me the two look pretty much the same.
 

TCMontium

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
179
Location
Germany, Kassel
Prominent bars and seemingly only yellow coloration with just a little bit of blue dots really do look different from A. cf. ortegai males of any size. Again, maybe A. ortegai males do have different colors or maybe females can have prominent bars and naturally have yellow coloration. I am not an expert on caudal patch patterns, I think it looks like your fish has the same patch pattern as mine, the last (is it called 6th? or 7th?) bar merging with the caudal spot, but I would wait for someone like Mike Wise to comment on the patterns of bars and caudal patches.
 

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