Strange situation between my Abacaxis 'couple'...

[loirUh]

hi guys !
first of all I must say that what I speak here is something that makes me very confused. I have a very strange situation with a couple of apistogramma Abacaxis, something that I am ashamed to speak up, because I still think I'm crazy.
last year got a couple of Abacaxis, they had some unsuccessful postures and finally I managed to stay with 2 small fish one last fry.
I felt that the tank where they were did not met the conditions necessary for the reproduction and decided to put reproduction attempts aside for some time. I placed the couple in a communitary tank and during that time the female developed its size, color, and fins. She became an authentic male by its physical appearance.

Later (last week), taking advantage of having available a larger tank I decided to try the reproduction again, I noticed that my supposed couple fought too much and that they were physically alike. To test this I decided to also put in the same tank a small daughter from both os them, and both members of my alleged couple attempted to court the young female!
I read in some places that dominated males tend to disguise themselves as females, but did not read any reports of a sex change!
I do not want to sound crazy but this this to leave me intrigued and wanted to know if there are more reports of this kind of situations!
This is all really strange....

Some pics:
the couple in the ould tank

the 'female'

the 'female now'

call me crazy... but this is true :/


Thanks guys!

 

[merlin]

2 of your pics above are .not showing.
Looking at the top pic Although one fish does not show the purple chin everything else looks male to me.

 

[loirUh]

the one not showing purple chin spawned a few times and i have offsprings from one of those spawns... now it turned to a 'male form'

re-uploaded pic from the 'female-male like'

 

[Mike Wise]

Sex change has been reported in several species of Apistos. Do a search for 'sex change' on the forum.

 

[loirUh]

I already did Mike... i found an old thread talking about this!

thanks

 

[loirUh]

Hi guys,

Just to let you know that my 'pseudo-female' specimen bred with its own daughter and i can now confirm 100% sure the sex change!

 

[Mike Wise]

Did your 'pseudo-female' ever lay eggs? If not, then it's more likely just delayed development of a young male.

 

[loirUh]

Hi mike,

The pseudo-female layed eggs a few times! The young female that now spawned is its daughter!!

 

[Exasperatus2002]

Wow, I know it's common for saltwater fish, but this is the first I've heard of it happening in freshwater fish.