amatitlania honduran red point

[coltiger1975]

I have started collecting HRP for the purpose to breed them, I have done this in the past and that is not the issue. I picked up fry from a breeder and some from a petstore also local. Now I have these growing out and not one is female, I thought I was losing it. I contacted the breeder and she said for whatever reason they all came out male. She sold her pair already.

Now I tested my theory and added a female convict to the tank and as observed all the males tried to court her. She has since been removed and back with her marble male convict.

Now my question is, is this normal for them to all be males? Especially since both batches were different parents. I am probably going to have to order more from online.

 

[duanes]

There are a number of reasons they could all be male. Since males sometimes grow faster, they could have easily outcompeted the smaller females in a rearing tank (often too small for the population) for food, and aggressiveness, and wiped them out.
Also cichlid spawn ratios are often determined by temperature, and pH.
A too high temp, mostly males, too low mostly females, or visa versa, the perfect temp, 50/50, and the same goes with pH.
I had this happen when a pair of Alcolapia alcalicus produced all females in a tank where the temp was slightly lower than optimum.

 

[coltiger1975]

It does make sense I just did not think it would be like reptiles. I thought that was weird since two different batches drew all males. I will have to look for that elusive female lol Thanks for the input and nice fish

 

[coltiger1975]

seems like I did not wait long enough lol I now have a sure pair. The biggest male has paired up with a smaller leucistic female. That makes me happy now I can start breeding these fish.

 

[coltiger1975]

I also raised temp from 77 to 80 and this seemed to trigger the pairing.