Male or Female Agassizii???

[bbetta]

Hi,
I purchased 2 Agassizii yesterday. The fish you will see in the first pic is a male beyond doubt, but whats the deal with the fish in the other pics? The blue color that it has on the main body confuses me. I really hope it is a female.
The pictures were taken with flash on.

Thanks

Male:


Unknown Gender:

 

[Mike Wise]

Size? Right now my guess is a young, subdominant male, but it's only a guess.

 

[bbetta]

Size? Right now my guess is a young, subdominant male, but it's only a guess.

About 2.5cm long...
What makes you think it's a male?

Thanks

 

[chris1805]

I have to agree with mike, It's missing the clear black stripes in the ventral fins which all the agassizii females have. It's still a bit of gues since at some photo's you actually see them. Althought the back of the doral fin also look more male to me than female. Also the shiny blue makes me think it could be a subdominant male. Guess only time will tell us the truth

 

[bbetta]

Thanks for the reply.
It's true that there isn't any black on the dorsal fins, although I've seen females that didn't have black there.
Maybe I'll seperate them. The male shows mild aggression to the other fish, but isn't this common behavior for the dominant male against any other fish, male or female, when trying to establish a territory?

 

[Larry Rogers]

Hi,
I purchased 2 Agassizii yesterday. The fish you will see in the first pic is a male beyond doubt, but whats the deal with the fish in the other pics? The blue color that it has on the main body confuses me. I really hope it is a female.
The pictures were taken with flash on.

Thanks

Male:
View attachment 5071

Unknown Gender:

View attachment 5072View attachment 5073 View attachment 5074View attachment 5075

I have a female like this watching a clutch right now. Western strain coloration. From finnage I would say pair is about seven months old and will need about six to eight more weeks to be ready to spawn. Start feeding frozen daphnia and cyclops and you will know in about six weeks one way or the other.

 

[chris1805]

It should have black in the ventral fins, not the dorsal fin. It's the shape at the end of the dorsal fin that worries me. Sorry if i was not really clear the first time

 

[bbetta]

It should have black in the ventral fins, not the dorsal fin. It's the shape at the end of the dorsal fin that worries me. Sorry if i was not really clear the first time

It was my bad, I accidentally wrote "dorsal" instead of "ventral".
After all the things you've pointed out I've started agreeing it is a male BUT I can I see that the aggressive behavior from the dominant male has ceased. The tank is not big enough for 2 males, it's just a 20g.

 

[Larry Rogers]

It was my bad, I accidentally wrote "dorsal" instead of "ventral".
After all the things you've pointed out I've started agreeing it is a male BUT I can I see that the aggressive behavior from the dominant male has ceased. The tank is not big enough for 2 males, it's just a 20g.

Aggression is meaningless in determining sex. A male will be just as hard on a single female until they start to court. I have also seen females, particularly guarding broods, beating up much layget males. Aggressive behaviour is a territorial facet and even females stake out homrs.

 

[Mike Wise]

The feature that makes me think this fish is a male is the caudal fin. It appears to be developing a dark caudal margin with unpatterned interior. But even more, is the dark lateral band extending far into the center of the fin. Almost all females, wild or domestic, do not show such a pattern. Actually most have no marginal band nor extended lateral band in the caudal fin. Most females show an unpatterned caudal fin. My guess is that it is a subdominant/sneaker male.

 

[chris1805]

The feature that makes me think this fish is a male is the caudal fin. It appears to be developing a dark caudal margin with unpatterned interior. But even more, is the dark lateral band extending far into the center of the fin. Almost all females, wild or domestic, do not show such a pattern. Actually most have no marginal band nor extended lateral band in the caudal fin. Most females show an unpatterned caudal fin. My guess is that it is a subdominant/sneaker male.

Just compaired what you said with my own agassizii female. Mine is a female for sure since she had several spawns with fry. My female has some black in the caudal fin but it's not the full band extending in the caudal fin. My female also has a big dot in the middle of the lateral band at the middle of her body, but this could be do to the fact she is in breeding colours at the moment.

 

[bbetta]

Thanks everyone for their inputs. Today I could see the blue hue on the main body of the fish without using flash, the dorsal fin had blue markings and I could see a little blue on the head.
I head a chance to exchange these Aggys for some Cacatuoides so I did.

I now have a beautiful pair of Cacatuoides. They are German Strain, the Double (maybe triple) red coloration.

Thanks for all your help,
I'll post again when I'll get them to breed.