Sub-adult male or female german blue ram?

[TT088]

Hi all,

I would be grateful if anyone would be able to assist with identifying the sex of a German blue ram in the photos attached.

For reference, these are newly purchased fish (in the last week), I believe they are also relatively juvenile with some developing to do, and they don’t appear to be of the most amazing genetics. These factors combined is making it quite hard for me to identify the sex of one of the fish. I have tried to include it in photos on its own and alongside another fish which is female.

It is slightly larger, bulkier and with a rounder head and brighter colours- which I think suggests male. However it also has some patterning which would make me think it is female - some blue markings within its black marking on its side?

I am leaning towards saying this is a subadult male with somewhat low quality genetics, however I would be grateful if someone with some more experience / a better eye would be able to give their view too.

Many thanks
Tom

 

[MacZ]

The bigger one is indeed a male.

You should treat for inner parasites, both are underweight, as you can see from the concave bellies.

And yes, the genetics are not very good. Stay clear of breeding with them.

 

[TT088]

The bigger one is indeed a male.

You should treat for inner parasites, both are underweight, as you can see from the concave bellies.

And yes, the genetics are not very good. Stay clear of breeding with them.

Thank you, that is very helpful. I agree with your points and I will stay clear of breeding here due to genetics. They came from a shop that I typically regard quite highly so I was slightly surprised. I am feeding them up with plenty of live and frozen foods at the moment to try to get some size on them

 

[MacZ]

Mikrogeophagus ramirezi from the regular trade are all more or less rubbish. If you can get wild or F-Generation specimens. Otherwise I always argue against buying this species at all.

 

[Mike Wise]

My guess is that the smaller on is probably a male, too, just young. It really doesn't matter since you have decided not to try to breed them.

 

[MacZ]

My guess is that the smaller on is probably a male, too, just young. It really doesn't matter since you have decided not to try to breed them.

It is possible, but as I wasn't able to get a good visual of it's caudal in the pictures I decided to say nothing.

Also now that I can look at the pictures on my bigger computer screen instead of my mobile... yeah, very likely. Both lack the purple coloured belly and the black/blue spot on the side.
What I can see now too: They show attributes of several different colour breeds. Don't let these fish multiply and if you can: Tell the store they should not buy or take back any of the offspring others might produce from this batch of fish. People will be furious if they try to breed with these in the future getting only mutts out of it.

 

[KenL]

I think the smaller one is a female due to the glitter around the spot on the side.
With regards to poor genetics, I’ve seen a lot worse. I gave up trying to keep ramerizi a long time ago.

 

[anewbie]

You can get wild caugth blue rams from time to time - at least in usa i usually see them 2 or 3 times a year.

 

[MacZ]

I think the smaller one is a female due to the glitter around the spot on the side.

Where do you see that?

 

[KenL]

Where do you see that?

 

[MacZ]

Not so sure, the other one shows something similar in the second picture.

 

[anewbie]

I understand what Ken is saying - the general rule is specs in the blue marking are female as well as pink bellies but some of these weird colour breeds can also be pretty mis-leading so it isn't 100%.

 

[KenL]

I’ve never seen a male ram with blue spangling on the side spot. Females often have a gold line either side of the spot.
Perhaps time will tell if they live long enough.

Incidentally, I recently saw some huge rams at my lfs. They had been bred in Sri Lanka and ordered in from there.

 

[MacZ]

I’ve never seen a male ram with blue spangling on the side spot. Females often have a gold line either side of the spot.
Perhaps time will tell if they live long enough.

My problem is, I can't see the side-spot in the pictures and it could be just a reflection as all the pictures have weird reflection residue (I think that was the term, I mean light reflections the camera overexaggerates and then it looks like the green/blue images in the eye after looking straight into a light). So I'm a biot hesitant.

Incidentally, I recently saw some huge rams at my lfs. They had been bred in Sri Lanka and ordered in from there.

Very likely the so-called jumbo-variant. you see them once in a while here too. Adults almost reach 10cm.

 

[TT088]

Very interesting discussion and I will post updates in due course