Neolamprologus sexfasciatus

[Alvil]

Hi all,

As title says need help sexing these fish.

I got three of these in a 3footer with some juvenile altos, the largest is about 7 or 8cm and the other two are around 5cm, they were geting along fine for a while although the two smaller ones didn't like each other, now its open war fare with the larger one taking over the tank and keeping the other two at each end of the tank, there is no structure in the tank, i was hoping for them to pair up and remove the pair in to a breeding tank. three days ago i put a small pile of rocks in the centre in the hope that they would pair up, the largest took over the rocks and still keeps the other two at bay.

I also got six others in a seperate tank these are only 3-4cm, should i put them all together ?

Cheers,

alex

[YeW]

Hi -

They are very difficult to sex. My advice is put them together and wait for a pair to form, when it does remove the others, quickly.

This species is capable of very nasty behaviour.

[Alvil]

Hi Yew,

It looks like i might have one male and two females out of the three larger ones,

last night when i was watching these fish, the male (largest) seemed to be favoring one of the smaler fish, he was letting one of them come near his rock pile, and it looked to be nosing up to his under side, and a little while later i found the two smaller ones in a jaw lock with the male under them and looking to try and separate them.

The stripes of the asumed male and one of the others was a lot darker than normal.

When i turned the lights off last night it was bussines as usual the male keeping the others in their side of the tank and cruising the tank looking for trouble.

When i get home today, I plan to separate the ones that i think are a pair and put them in a tank with a fully grown colony of O. ventralis and see what hapens, this tank has some rock caves and hidy holes, hopefully they will not disturb the ventralis to much.

Cheers,

Alex