Sexing apisto panduro - stressed sneaker male?

[neo705]

Finding a male panduro in the UK has proven to be a lot more difficult than I thought. I've been trying for weeks. All stores that stock them report that they only have females.

I drove to one of those stores to get some pencilfish and I saw their panduro. They had about 10. About 8 of them were obvious females (yellow with black bellies) but 2 of them were blue-ish without any yellow and only a black spot at the base of the tail. I thought they were males.

I showed the fish shop owner and he said he swears they were all female last time he checked. The moment he put the net to catch one of the "males" they freaked out and immediately showed black on their ventral fins and a black blotch on their bellies.

We let them calm down for 10 minutes and they turned back to their blue coloration without black bellies or ventral fins.

I got the most male looking one. The shop agreed to have it back if it's a female once settled.

Please have a look at the pictures. They are all of the same fish. Also note the fish is stressed out still.

It just looks so unlike any female panduro I've ever seen and nothing like my 2 female panduros. Yet the black ventral fins and black belly really throw me off.. even if they seem to be temporary.

 

[rasmusW]

It looks like a female to me.

-r

 

[neo705]

It looks like a female to me.

-r

Thank you. I have never seen a blue female before.
My other females don't have the dark spot at the base of the tail, and the red marking on the tail is very red on this one and orange on my other females. The face marking on my other females is also very chunky.
Is this a normal variation?

 

[anewbie]

I have similar a. nijjensi and with my ~14 month old f1 i still have quite a few 'large' female that are almost certainly males but yea the real females definitely are more - well in truth they all turned yellow probably 'cept one blue one which is almost certainly a male 'cept well it sure does look like an over grown blue female.

The pot isn't that large - and waiting to see if a pair forms before splitting them up further (currently 6 in one aq and 3 in another for now).

It is really frustrating trying to find m/f fer sure because the 'females' look quite small almost 1/4 to 1/5 the size of the males and they might simply not be 'mature'... though they sure do look like yellow buzzing females.

Not really relevant to your question but they really are hard to sex; though what i don't get is why would a male pretend to be a female if it is the only male ?

 

[KenL]

It looks like a female to me.

-r

Me also. Here’s a pic of a pair where the female isn’t very yellow.

Nijsseni and Panduro have always been my favourite Apistos. Haven’t seen any decent quality ones in a long time though.