Help with Bolivians.

[Mikey]

Okay, here's the situation.....i was pretty sure that i had a female, and a few others on here kinda thought so also, so i went and got a male. I put him in the same community tank(for now) and the 2 don't like each other at all, and chase each other now and then. Have i actually got 2 males, or is this usual type's of behaviour? LFS said i can come back in and swap if it's 2 males, but i know that these guys are pretty hard to sex. Both of the fish DO look kinda similar......slightly larger black spines at front of dorsal, same shaped fins elsewhere etc. The second one i got is almost surely a boy because he is starting to develop a trailer on the bottom edge of his caudal. Originally believed the first was agirl because i though i saw her ovipositor hanging down. Maybe thats her anus??? I dunno?

How can i be sure of their sex?

 

[bigbird]

Morning Mikey,

Any chance of a photo ? Otherwise it is very difficult to sex.
cheers jk :biggrin:

 

[Cathy G]

I checked out your first thread and though it did seem to be a female, the fish's sex organ pointed toward the back... this lead to think you might have a young male. However, I'm not certain...

Now, as to your present situation. This is normal behavior. Let them work it out for a while and see what happens. Make sure your new one is able to eat and that his/her fins stay intact. Hopefully there are plenty of hiding places... give them a couple of weeks at least and then evaluate the situation.

Cathy

 

[Mikey]

Okay, here's a few new pics(i hope). The original one i thought was female has the 2 spots/stripe and the new "male has a faded single bar which i'll try to show last. They don't try to kill each other, just butt heads now and then. The 2-spot just seems to hang out at the front of the glass, going back and forth. I worried about stress, but it's starting to get some beautiful color on the pelvic and caudal fins.

There it is...now if i exchange the new fella for a female, will the two girls fight, and how do i know what a girl looks like....assuming that i don't already have a M/F? They look the same to me.

 

[Daryl]

the 1st & 2nd pic look male to me... the 3rd pic I am unsure of - but from your description the 3rd pic is the new fish right?

 

[Mikey]

LOL. #1, and #2 are the same fish that i thought was originally a female, but now think is a male, and the 3rd pic is of the newer fish(correct). Whenecer they do come together face to face, they tend to flare up and then flare gill covers etc. Initially they tried a quick lip-lock, but not really much of that any more, just the occasional chase, or lunge.

 

[Cathy G]

Get some blood worms and high protein foods and fatten up that new fish...

Lip locking can be between males/males and males/females. This is one of the more entertaining behaviors. Just give them time, especially if the first one is coloring up. If you have a couple and if they like each other, eventually there will be times of swimming together mixed in with the lip locking.

The spots, stripes, dorsal rays, etc don't make much difference in determining the sex.

What size tank is this?
Cathy

 

[Daryl]

I went back and found your original thread and checked out those photos and I must say they did seem a little confusing... Probably for the very reasons the pic of your new fish is inconclusive - young fish, not fully coloured up in a new environment...

In my experience once a female bolivian matures her ovipositor will be visible always - even when not spawning, where as the males genitalia will be hard to see most of the time (except when spawning).

-The old 'rule' about the 3rd spine of the dorsal being longer on males is typical of blue rams, but not necessarily so on bolivians.
-The 'rule' that male bolivians will have trailers on the top & bottom rays of the caudal fin should also be used sparingly for determining sex - yes it's true males will often get long trailers, in the right conditions a female will have little trailers as well (I've heard soft water)... And with nipping from tankmates a males trailers could be reduced to nothing.
-Colour IME is only reliable on mature fish that are comfortable in their environment. Young fish and stressed fish will often have the same 'washed' look regardless of sex.

There was a great thread over on cichlid-forum that had very good pictures and pointers for sexing bolivian rams... If I can find it I'll post the link here...

 

[Mikey]

As for tank size, it's a 36X12 footprint(38gallons for now=going into same size footprint 27 long).
I assume that there is no CONCLUSIVE way for me to tell if i have 2 males then? I just want to give them a nice environment(moving a pair hopefully M/F into planted 27), and not have them too stressed from fighting. The kribs kinda chase them once in awhile too.