can YOU help sex me?.....Green terror

[doomsau]

here is one of my green terror's. im curious about the sex of this fish, as i want to try and get them to breed. its around 4-5 inches, im guessing thats its a female. what do you think? (crappy pictures i know) i just wanted to test my new phone camera capibilities so if needed i can bust out the old ladies camera

 

[jworth]

not certain with this exact species but my knowledge in other cichlids makes me think a male.

 

[Alhazred]

i have to say female as the forhead is missing the big bump that the males get


still my only experiance with this type of cichlid is fourm talk and pet store i frequent used to have a mating pair a person gave up.

but my understanding is the forehead and size are the two ways to tell with this fish

 

[paopanlilio]

body shape says female. the marks on the face to

 

[doomsau]

yup thats what i was thinking. thanks guys

 

[Citrinellus]

Tough call, I'm leaning towards a male though. Is he usually that plump or did you just feed him?

i have to say female as the forhead is missing the big bump that the males get


still my only experiance with this type of cichlid is fourm talk and pet store i frequent used to have a mating pair a person gave up.

but my understanding is the forehead and size are the two ways to tell with this fish

I've had fish with nuchal humps thinking they were male only to find them laying eggs.

 

[cichlid2006]

my 6" male GT i had, had no nuchal hump. lack of or having a nuchal hump is not an indicator of sex. the only certain way is to vent (flip the fish upside down and look at its genital region) oo = male and oO = female.
common indicators ive read that are used by people seem to be (as far as im aware none are entirely accurate):

the amount of blue lines on the face (less=female if i remember correctly),
width of the orange/silver band on the tail (wider = male for instance),
pointed fins/trailers = male,
head shape,
plumpness which could indicate eggs or just a well fed fish.

im not sure of the sex with yours though, your GT seems to be a mixed bag.

 

[doomsau]

its normally a plump fish, i have another gt that is fat as well. it might be cuz of overfeeding but they always seem to have that big belly. a while ago when i did a landscape change i noticed that they were acting like they were going through the mating rituals, such as swimming in a tight circle, the smaller one(not pictured) cleaning/nibbling some flat rocks (getting ready to lay?), locking lips. they both had something coming out of the anal region, but the smaller one definitely had the tube extended. never done it before or since.......nothing happened(no eggs), the next day everything was back to normal. when they were locking lips my other fish didn't like it and they would intervene. I'm thinking they were interrupted? anyway my plan is to put them alone in my unused 80 gallon and try again.

 

[Sab_Fan]

body shape says female.

x2 . . . I'm not 100%, but that's exactly what I was thinking