Help sexing Apistogramma cacatuoides

[Joe]

Hello everyone,
I bought a trio of Apistogramma cacatuoides 'Orange Flash' three days ago. I am concerned as to what sex they are - there is definately one male, and I'm pretty sure there is also a sleeper male, but one does look to be a true female. Any help and opinions will be greatly appreciated


This photo shows the male and what I think is the sleeper male, both on the left side of the photo.

Male (approx. 35mm SL)

Sleeper? (Approx. 25mm SL)

Female? (Approx. 20mm SL)

Thanks,
Joe

 

[aquaticclarity]

It's harder to sex domestic strains of Apistos like Orange Flash as the selctively bred colors can over ride the natural marking used to readily tell males and females apart. Normally I use the ventral fin color as a primary indicator of sex. Females have a noticable black leading edge in most cases and males have a very faint to nonexistent black color there. So based on that I'dd say you have a trio but time will confirm that!

 

[wethumbs]

I had a hard time telling the females as well. I was picking a breeding group of 'Orange Flash' from a tank of 80+ of them, I ended up with what I thought was 2 males and 3 females. After two weeks, one of the 'female' exploded into a male the same size as the other males I had. The only way to be sure you have a female is when you see them spawn. The two females spawned within a week while the pseudo-female obviously could not. She (I mean he) would still court the males until he turned into one himself.

That is the very reason why you see I lot of people who buy Apisto pairs end up having a 'Brokeback' pair. Someone posted here recently that they got two pairs of cacatuoides online which ended up being 3 males and 1 female. I wouldnt make that call until I positively seen a spawn from that so-called female.

 

[Joe]

Thanks guys

 

[steve1572]

I breed hundreds of these and if i was picking out females i would pick those in your pictures but as wet thumb has already said with the highly colored domestic forms it is very difficult but on the pics i would say female but like most ive been wrong many times before