Sexing McMasteri

[Lukecarnley]

Hello! New to keeping Apostogramma. I got a pair of McMasteri a few months ago. I wanted to see if you could help me with sexing these fish. I believe the first two pictures to be of my male and the last two of my female. The pictures of the male were taken a few months apart.

Thank you

 

[Mike Wise]

Hard to say from these photos. I'm not even sure that they are A. macmasteri. If they were, I would expect that they would show some red on the top and bottom edges of the caudal fin in the male. It's possible that they could be some other closely related species in the macmasteri-subcomplex. I just need more information if I were to guess.

 

[Lukecarnley]

I can upload some more photos but I might just need to wait till it gets a little older. Still pretty young.
I have seen the fish in the bottom photos guarding eggs in a cave. She did this right after i removed her from the 10gal breeding tank and moved her into a 20 gallon community tank. I moved her because she was terrorizing the fish in the top photos.
I now have them both in the 20 gal community and they get along with no major issues because the top fish has plenty of hiding spaces!
From what I can see, they exhibited breeding behaviors but don’t think I will get any fry with the community I have in the tank. I just wanted to get a second opinion before I tried to breed two females.

 

[anewbie]

I can upload some more photos but I might just need to wait till it gets a little older. Still pretty young.
I have seen the fish in the bottom photos guarding eggs in a cave. She did this right after i removed her from the 10gal breeding tank and moved her into a 20 gallon community tank. I moved her because she was terrorizing the fish in the top photos.
I now have them both in the 20 gal community and they get along with no major issues because the top fish has plenty of hiding spaces!
From what I can see, they exhibited breeding behaviors but don’t think I will get any fry with the community I have in the tank. I just wanted to get a second opinion before I tried to breed two females.

Where did you obtain them - are they wc or tank raised ?

 

[Lukecarnley]

Where did you obtain them - are they wc or tank raised ?

Local fish store. I have no back ground as to where the fish came from but I would imagine TR.

 

[MacZ]

Is it a specialty store or just the usual assortment? If it's a basic store without specialty fish you can expect them to be just domestic A. macmasteri and at least some of the fotos would support that.