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Dicrossus filamentosus - sexing and advice?

rr16

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
536
Very interesting. It was your fish that inspired me to buy Farlowella. Only got 2 left now, but no sign of spawning yet (plus I have no idea what gender they are!).
 

Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
My male Farlowella is guarding 51 eggs laid last night :)
I've also got two juveniles at 3.5" and 12 fry at 0.75" at the moment. Survival rates aren't great!
Mine are F.vittata and are easy to sex - the male has a wide hairy nose and the female has a longer thinner smooth nose with a knob on the end. I'll dig out a comparative photo later for you.
 

Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
This evening I watched one of the pairs of Dicrossus filamentosus preparing to spawn. This is in the busy Rio Negro community tank where they have spawned at least twice before, but the eggs don't tend to last long. In this tank their preferred sites are on Hydrocotyle leucocephala leaves relatively near the surface. Here are a couple of photos; you can see the female's ovipositor ready as they clean the leaves in preparation for spawning.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Also, sorry, I realise I had forgotten to upload a photo showing the difference between the sexes of F.vittata.
Here are a couple of pics of mine. Sorry about the reflections on the first one but it does very clearly show the difference between the nose of the female compared to the males either side. The female's nose is long, thin and smooth while the males have broader hairy noses. These are adults, about 6" to 7" long. The female is very gravid in this picture.

The second picture shows two of their offspring, about 3.5" to 4" total length and 7 months old. At this age the sexual dimorphism is just starting to become apparent. Female on the left, male on the right.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
My last post to this thread was just over a year ago.
Back in July 2015 I had moved four Dicrossus Filamentosus into my 240L community tank, which already housed two adult males.
Three of these were small fish bought from Aqualife in about February 2015 and the other was one of my own fry spawned in March 2015. All appeared female.
They spawned a couple of times with the older males but the eggs were eaten, and the older males died off a couple of months later. The four fish all continued to look like females in shape and colour (smaller, shorter, red pectorals, no fin filaments, plainer colours), and until recently I was convinced they were all females.
Now, 15 months after putting them in the tank and about a year after the old males died, I have a male again! No doubt about it, tail filaments, getting colourful, growing bigger. The fish are at least 18 months old and all grew up looking like females.

I had read about these fish changing sex, but also read some studies saying it was just that juvenile males look a bit like females. I can't scientifically prove one of the females has become a male, but that's what my observations indicate.
 

gerald

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
If the current "male" continued to look like a female for a YEAR after the older males died, it probably WAS a female. I think a "suppressed" male would have started showing male characteristics within a couple months. Now the question remains whether he/she has become a functional male capable of fertilizing another female's eggs, or just an androgynous inter-sex fish who looks and acts male but is lacking in sexual performance. We look forward to hearing more about this guy!
 

Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Yes, it's been about a year since the older males died, and the fish is between 18 months and 2 years old.
Here are some mediocre pics I took this afternoon. I'll try to get some better ones over the next few days.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Some better pictures of the boy this evening, including two pics of him chasing one of the girls.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Just bought 4 of these again. Nice to have them back.
Great!
I've moved my transsexual male and two females into a 50L tank on their own, and I'm gradually lowering pH and conductivity while increasing tannins.

The third female became an expert at evading capture so is still in the 240L community!
 

Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Much showing-off and chasing going on; a few pics here but photographic conditions are challenging in the blackwater.

I put two females and the trans-sexual male in here; one of the females is missing. Possibly on eggs already and now the male is chasing the other one?
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Well, it's happened! We have babies, from my group that all looked like females for a year, and then one became a male :)
They are very hard to photograph in the gloom of the tannin-stained water.
Here's the least bad I've managed so far.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Some updated and better pics of the fry.
I think there are about 20 of them in total.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
16 tiny fry last week have become 7 bigger fry this week. I am feeding microworms, freshly hatched BBS and rotifers.

I found a baby kuhli loach in a different tank this evening, and the Farlowellas spawned again this morning. Must be something in the water...
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Kuhli loach babies are exciting! I don't hear about them breeding in aquaria too often.
I'd seen them spawning several times (and took a video of it once) but I was not expecting any eggs to survive the hungry mouths. But one must have made it because when I emptied the tank yesterday I found a little one as well as all the adults.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
Another Dicrossus spawn yesterday. In the background Mum guards the eggs laid on a leaf, while in the foreground one of the previous batch of fry is visible. I'm not sure if it's from the same Mum - there are three females and one male in the tank.
 

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Mol_PMB

Active Member
Messages
252
The new spawn has hatched but is not yet free-swimming and Mum is guarding them on the Anubias leaf. Meanwhile the survivors of the previous spawn are starting to get their chequerboard pattern and are now just about big enough to tackle grindalworms.

:)
 

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