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Guess that fish


cpfc

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Looks like Sandy could be right from these photo's, but these no 2/3 are only 5cm so.

But if you look at No 3 the female is showing a lot of colour in He / she's body in your other post.

And as you say hides a lot so most likley hiding from your nice alpha male and the other as well.

To me that points to another male in a month or so and hes no 3 in the pecking order.

When you look at photo of the 2 males together you cant miss sexing them.

What shop you buy them from.

They would have done their best to sex them and I'm sure would swap for a female as they will sell a nice coloured male easy.But hard to sex these guys at the 4cm you got them at even for the best of us :B its a best guess only.

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I do not blame the shop. The guy there is very good and looks after me as you can see by the colouration of the dominant. I will give him a call. This is all a big learning process for me. No 3 does not colour up much. The question I have is whether the orange tips of the dorsal fin are an indicator. I will double check the pics in the other post as fish 3 may not be there.

Looks like Sandy could be right from these photo's, but these no 2/3 are only 5cm so.

But if you look at No 3 the female is showing a lot of colour in He / she's body in your other post.

And as you say hides a lot so most likley hiding from your nice alpha male and the other as well.

To me that points to another male in a month or so and hes no 3 in the pecking order.

When you look at photo of the 2 males together you cant miss sexing them.

What shop you buy them from.

They would have done their best to sex them and I'm sure would swap for a female as they will sell a nice coloured male easy.But hard to sex these guys at the 4cm you got them at even for the best of us :B its a best guess only.

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I am reading a lot of articles indicating that egg spots are not a conclusive sign of a male. The only consistent information seems to be around the shape of the anal and dorsal fins. Males have sharper anal and dorsal fins. You can see the two shehes have more rounded anal fins however to confuse matters their dorsals are sharp. When I get time I will take more photos.

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Good to see your reading up and gaining more information for yourself.

Egg spots are more so on males, yes females have them as well but usually not many & dull.

Your No 2 males are bright and stand out in a fish that small & the fin is long and pointed, not round/blunt as most females are.Your Alpha male trying to breed with the others? Do they fight and or hide? or try to breed.

Watching what they display will help you as well.

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I will have to search youtube for some vids tonight to see what is courting behaviour as opposed to assertiveness. Probably best not done at work and its blocked. Ollie (the Alpha male) tends to hang out with no 2 (aka Ruby). No 3 (still not named) is a loner but sometimes gets hassled by Ollie. Ruby gets brighter and darker but still not worked out a pattern. Whatever way this turns out it is fascinating.

Names are for the kids and I will be putting up an ID chart for them.

Good to see your reading up and gaining more information for yourself.

Egg spots are more so on males, yes females have them as well but usually not many & dull.

Your No 2 males are bright and stand out in a fish that small & the fin is long and pointed, not round/blunt as most females are.Your Alpha male trying to breed with the others? Do they fight and or hide? or try to breed.

Watching what they display will help you as well.

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next step is venting :)

oo = boy

o O = girl

I don't remember seeing a Stuartgranti morph where

the females showed any egg spots in the anal fin

anal fin shape isn't uniformly that simple for some

cichlid species

fish 3 looks the most likely to be female from the pics

listed but I still feel pic 2 is a sub male

you having fun yet ;)

Chris

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Its great. The Mrs thinks I have lost the plot. Venting looks harder than identifying the sex of a baby on an ultrasound. If I was certain in my ability and did not think I would hurt the fish I would do it.

next step is venting :)

oo = boy

o O = girl

I don't remember seeing a Stuartgranti morph where

the females showed any egg spots in the anal fin

anal fin shape isn't uniformly that simple for some

cichlid species

fish 3 looks the most likely to be female from the pics

listed but I still feel pic 2 is a sub male

you having fun yet ;)

Chris

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had the holding female Afra in a clear fry saver. The Mrs was worried the lights would stress her so they were left off. Today I put the female in a 50l Kmart tub and turned the lights on. The Auloncara started shimmying in front of ladyboy 2 and chasing her at high speed in a way I have not seen before. It was shake your bootie stuff and in my inexperienced opinion he was randy. Next post will have more pics. This only happened this afternoon.

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Thanks

The oranged finned one is the one he is chasing. All still present at dinner.

Nice pics :)

Dom male looks excellent - female is conditioned nicely and sub male is starting to show

more colour

check the last 2 pics only the female shows the orange edge on the dorsal

Chris

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It looks to me like you have 2 males - 1 female.

You'll notice as they get a bit bigger the sub will get a bluer face and the top fin will have the white streak. The female has no blue in the face but the top fin has an orange streak :)

The sub dominant male looks just like my sub-dominant male :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Female 2 (the one with the orange top) is now holding. Unless someone can tell me otherwise I think that makes it Female.

I caught them dancing together at least that is the euphamism.

Shemale 1 has been hiding in the corners and has more colour despite the alpha male chasing shehe away from female 2.

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If your wanting to keep the fry you have 2 options strip

1. Strip after 4-5 days which allows you to know the eggs have been fertilized adequately, then tumble the eggs

2. Let them hold and strip either

a) after 14 days

b) or after 20 days

From Personal experience I have found that auloncara fry when stripped early dont have a great survival rate compared to ones that have been striped and have developed further.

John

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Option 4 is to let the female spit in the aquarium and survival of the fastest. If I chose that then I will get more of that holey coral stuff. Your experience on stripping matches what else I have read and I will probably isolate her at about 20 days. We will see what happens. I have an Afra mum fattening up in isolation with some fry at the moment. I may get a net fry saver and get the Aulonocara to spit in there and then put her back in the tank. It will probably come down to how much I have on in 3 weeks time.

If your wanting to keep the fry you have 2 options strip

1. Strip after 4-5 days which allows you to know the eggs have been fertilized adequately, then tumble the eggs

2. Let them hold and strip either

a) after 14 days

b) or after 20 days

From Personal experience I have found that auloncara fry when stripped early dont have a great survival rate compared to ones that have been striped and have developed further.

John

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