A. borellii sub-dominant male vs. female morphology

[Lutefisk]

Can sub-dominant males also have black on the first ray of their pectoral and dorsal fins? A few of the web resources I've found seem to use that to distinguish females and sneaker males, but I have a borellii I suspect is male with the black coloration.

(S)/he has gotten markedly larger and more blue-and-yellow since coming home, though not as colored up or large as my dominant male. His/her anal and dorsal fins also don't extend as far back as the big male's.

So far, I've been unsuccessful at getting useful finnage pictures. Are there any other characters I should look for to differentiate females and submissive males in this species? Thanks!

 

[gerald]

Yes they can. Somebody here recently posted photos of an Apisto pair with fry (i forget what species) where BOTH parents had dark front rays on the pelvic fins. Head shape, belly shape, and fin length are the other characteristics I would look at.

 

[Lutefisk]

Can you point me to a thread with that information for A. borellii, or is it more or less the same across species? I'm new to keeping apistos.

On a related note, if this is a subdominant male, I think he has the potential to be prettier than my current dominant--he has more irridescent blue flecks on his face, anyway. Would he color up better if I removed him to a tank by himself, or if I removed the current big guy, and left the little one with the third, who still looks female to me?

 

[ErtyJr]

My Male winkelfleck, it isn't borelli, but he has black in his pelvic exactly as a female would. They have had 3 batches of fry, and all my fry males and females have black in the pelvic fins as well.

Black in the pelvic fins is a good indicator to use, but it isn't the end all of sexing apistos. You need to look at the finnage of the fish, as well as overall behavior. There are lots of things to consider and you have to look at everyone of them and sort of make a check list, and see which side the fish ends up falling on lol. I'll try to upload a picture of my male to show the black in pelvic later. My phone doesn't have enough signal atm to upload it.

And yes if you separate the two fish and it is a male, it will begin to color up much m ore and the sex will become obvious.

 

[ErtyJr]

My male winkelfleck

 

[Lutefisk]

Beautiful fish, ErtyJr! Thanks for the advice. I did put the suspected male in another tank, and he's coloring up well.

 

[ErtyJr]

Well I guess it's good he is coloring up but bad that he is a male!