Cacatu Id

[krudolph]

I ordered six cacatuoides that were supposed to be 3 pairs. I think I have five males and the sixth one resembles a female with the black on the ventrals, but I am not sure. What do you think?

 

[krudolph]

In the first picture I am asking about the top one ......

 

[Cooder]

The one you are talking about does not look like a female. First, the overall caudal, dorsal and anal fin colour, dont look like they would be from a female.
Also, the ray extensions on the front and back of the dorsal dont come in females, aswell as the caudal.

Not an expert in sexual dimorphism but ive never seen apisto females with that much colour or fin extentions...

Sorry mate, looks like you have all males. (unless im wrong of course!! )

 

[danbb]

Yes, all males, unfortunately. What kind of store is that, to send you six males instead of 3 pairs?!?

 

[krudolph]

Thanks for the input guys. This is the second time I have been in this situation. I think I now have 11 males. The first time was off of aquabid. I purchased what I was expecting was 2 males and 3 females. There was a picture of two of the fish. Having just started collecting apisto's (I have kept many other fresh and saltwater over the last 20 years) I am not familiar with separating the two. I posted some pictures and was told I had all males. I contacted the guy and he basically said oh well, sorry. He was not the breeder and I actually was able to track down where he purchased them. He purchased 10 of them and sold me six. I am thinking he pulled a couple of pairs and sent me the excess males. So I put that down as a learning experience. On the flip side, they are nice looking males.

So, this time I went to what I understand is a large well known vendor on the west coast and talked to them on the phone and had several discussions. I even asked for pictures, but they said their macro lens was broken and I waited a week while they were getting it replaced/fixed. Okay, maybe that should have been my first clue, but I have actually been to their retail facility earlier this year during a business trip and it blew me away. They had the most incredible store I have ever seen. There must have been over 500 tanks in the place. So, I took a leap of faith and placed an order and I asked for all females. The sales manager told me they could only give me pairs, so I wanted at at least three females, so I ordered six. They said they are from Asia and the females would be very colorful. Umm, was that my second clue something was up.....no, have faith I told myself.

Of course, by now I had read about how to tell the difference, but I realize that does not make me anywhere near expert, but I easily ruled out four of them and only paused on the other two because of the black on the ventrals. So, I did contact the seller and told them I felt I had received six males. They have asked me to send them pictures. The other one looks almost exactly like the one posted, but less like a female.

I haven't listed the vendor's name as I want to give them the chance to make it right. We will see.

Thank you again for providing your opinions guys. If anyone else wants to chime in please do. If they challenge my pictures, maybe I will route them to this site.

 

[Mike Wise]

For me this is the problem with the excessively red domestic strains of A. cacatuoides. The females have so many of the typical male characteristics. That being said, if the fish in question is 2"/5cm TL then there is a good chance that it is a female. I wouldn't guarantee it however.

 

[Cooder]

Its pretty disgusting that commercial breeding has gone so far that, in some cases, we can no longer distinguish between genders...
If i was ever going to get A. cacatuoides they would be F1 or Wild.

 

[krudolph]

Thanks Mike. When I sent in the pics to the vendor I asked for their approximate age. I would say they are around 2" and a bit smaller then the other obvious males, but my other bachelors tank has two larger ones and the others would appear to be the next size down which would be in line with the size of female. However, I assumed it was simply because the larger two were the dominate males. I have since put the three smaller ones in my larger community tank and will see how they change.

Yes Cooder, I can fully appreciate those that the natural or wild strains approach. However, I do like idea of breeding some nice strains and see what the fry will look like. There are other types of fish where it can be difficult to sex the fish, so that doesn't diminish my desire to move forward. However, at this time I am still under the impression they can still sex them with pretty good certainty. If they felt it was a crapshoot, I would hope they would sell them as such. I could understand if they missed one, but if I received 5 males or all males I am optimistic they will do the right thing. They sell a ton of fish and I never hear bad things about them.

They received the pictures and said they will take a closer look and get back to me. Again, I am still optimistic they will do the right thing.

 

[wethumbs]

Here is what one of my female 'Triple Red' looks like. The female is in brood care coloration so it is easy to tell. Otherwise, it can be pretty difficult to ID the sex when they are young. I had even seen a male behaved like a female so as to 'fool' the dominate male. That being said, yours do look like that of young males. All Asian bred apistos have a tendency to be male heavy, but then I have seen that from many US breeders as well.

The funny thing is I always tried to breed more females from each batch but people just want pairs, so I always ended up with extra females.


[URL='http://s1003.photobucket.com/user/wethumbs/media/Apistogramma%20cacatuoides%20Triple-Red/A_cacatuoides_TripleRed_female.jpg.html'][/URL]

 

[krudolph]

Interesting, so the females can be that colorful! I had some others look at my "maybes", and some ruled them out as soon as they see the color. They are from Asia and they indicated, as you noted, that they come in male heavy. Sounds like you no longer breed them? Obviously, I would be interested in some if you had any you were interested in selling. I have looked all over the place for many months and have not seen any females as colorful as yours.

I am sure you experts would note flaws, but as a newbie I think the males are pretty nice. Of course since I am new to apistos they all look good to me and I have certainly seen many incredible looking ones on various sites. Okay, I will post some pictures of the males and maybe you guys can point out things that I should look for in my next purchase. Once I have some females I presume I will need to reduce the some males. Additiona
lly, how about you guys telling me which ones you feel are the nicer of the bunch, and I will make sure I keep them?

 

[krudolph]

I think this was my other female hopeful. I will post the others later, time to get ready for work.

 

[krudolph]

Okay, the vendor communicated back and they are still judging them. They feel three fish have yellow in the body, like the one above, and are females. The owner will now take a look and make a final decision. He actually flew to Asia to meet with the breeder in person and see the operation. He said the females are very colorful. As wetthumbs noted and shows, the females do indeed have this much color and he is basing that on direct knowledge.

 

[krudolph]

Before I put my fish in their new tank I had dropped a couple of female guppies in for a month or so. The day I took them out and put the caca's in I see a dozen or so fry swimming around. The look like a bunch of nats darting around, but the caca show no interest. I was thing they would be great live food, but it appears they are all still there after a couple of weeks?

 

[wethumbs]

Sounds like you no longer breed them?

The female in the picture is currently guarding a brood of around 100 fry. Notice the red tail in the background that is out of focus? That's the male.

 

[krudolph]

Oh great. When you said you "always tried" sounded like past tense. I will send you a PM

 

[krudolph]

Okay, so unless males can lay eggs, it is a female! However, they are white, so I am guessing that is not a good thing?

 

[Mike Wise]

White eggs can be fertile; fuzzy white eggs, no. Color depends largely on what you feed your fish.

 

[danbb]

Mike is right - only if they are fuzzy you must take them and leave the others.

 

[krudolph]

Good to know, thanks guys. She mated up with the nicest male so let's see how her first brood goes. They both have taken over the right side of the tank and the others have always hung out on the left so my fingers are crossed. What are the odds the first batch work out? Probably not real high, especially since I do not have a spare tank set up for the others. It is a 30L (48x12x12).

 

[krudolph]