Female, or sleeper male?

[Spidy]

What do you guys think, is the fish in the last 4 photos a female Macmasteri or a sleeper male?

Added photos of the male for comparison.

 

[Ade205]

Looks female to me. Mine are a more colourful strain, but otherwise yours look pretty much identical to all my current female macs fin wise and black markings... yours does have more blue iridescent markings than any of mine though which I'm not so sure about!
This is one of my confirmed females...

Ade.

 

[Mike Wise]

Looks small, young and a color-enhanced domestic strain. That makes it hard to sex. Maybe wait a couple of months?

 

[Spidy]

Ade, I hope your right.

Mike, that's a tough call to make. I want to breed them and supply in Melbourne right now is scarce. LFS has already agreed to replace but I'm still undecided.

 

[A Timbers Fan]

I would say too difficult to tell right now unfortunately.

 

[Ade205]

Spidy.... What size are both the fish and how do they interact?

 

[Spidy]

Ade, I'll let you know their sizes when I get home (still at work). As far as their interaction, they pretty much leave each other alone. I put a ceramic spawning cave in the tank and noticed the "female" check it out. The male wasn't interested.

 

[Spidy]

Ade, the smaller fish is about 3cm nose to tail and the larger one is 4cm.

 

[Mike Wise]

When I find apistos that are too young to positively sex I usually buy more than 2. I try to get 6: 2 larger specimens (probably males) and 4 smaller - but not the smallest - specimens. This should result in at least 1, but usually more females.

 

[Spidy]

Mike, appreciate the response. The prices of Apistos down here is sky high ($85 per pair). That's why I'm always on the lookout for local breeders.

 

[Mike Wise]

I understand completely. At high prices I don't buy unless I know for certain that I have properly sexed fish. I rarely buy apistos online/sight unseen unless I know the seller. Also consider the possibility that you can sell off any unneeded apistos once you get your breeding pair.

 

[Spidy]

Thanks Mike. I think I'll hang onto "her" for a while and see what happens. To me, and full disclaimer I'm not very experienced with Apistos, it looks like they're showing signs of pairing up/mating behavior. I'll post back here once I'm certain either way.

 

[ARJDA]

Looks like a female to me. The whole deportment of the fish seems to be female. We will see, won't we.

 

[Spidy]

UPDATE: Just to confirm, turns out she is indeed a female. A little hard to see but if you zoom in you can see the fry.