Festae Update

[Optimist]

Hi everyone. I took some pictures of my two 4.5" festae that arrived from Rapps about two weeks ago. As some of you may remember, there was some question as to the gender of the two fish. I am absolutely sure that one is a female (The one in the first four pictures). She has colored up a lot since I got her, and is dominating over the other festae. You can see that she has some faint blue stripes showing up. I am still not sure of the other festae's sex (The one in the last two pictures). Maybe you guys can help me determine.

Here is the female:

Here is the festae in question:

 

[Piranhanut]

The bottom one is definitely a male and I hate to tell you but the top ones dorsal fin is faded to the point that its telling me its a male as well. There is less spangling in the fins on the top fish as females dont have as many spots on their fins in most cases. My smaller male that was sold as female looked exactly like these fish when I first bought as well. I'll post some pics of mine to help you. This is my female at 3.5". Shes not colored up here just to let you know. This is what she looked like when I got here home, stressed out with bars looking a pale blue.

Here is the link on my 4 F0's when I first bought them. The last two were the ones in question that both turned out male. The smallest one was around 3" and the other closer to 4". Still keeping my fingers crossed for you but its not looking good. You can see my smallest one in question hardly had any spangling on its fins and darker lower fins along with its top dorsal looking dark in color as well. i was told and absolutely sure that the 3rd photo,fish, was a female, not true.

Link:

http://www.cichlidmadness.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20777

 

[Piranhanut]

I just took these photos so you can see what they currently look like. The top photo is of both the fish that were in question that turned out to be males. The second pic is of the bigger male, around 7" now I'm guessing. the third is the smaller male that I was told female. Hes now around 5". The last are of my paired up love birds. I should have stuck with these two only when I bought them but I promised the owner I would purchase 4 when I got there. I still havent received a straight answer why some males are solidly colored like my bottom photo versus the two above males. I have been told that all males will eventualy loose their bars and look like my bottom fish but Im having a hard time believing that since I have seen many large males with the same color pattern as these. Im wondering if there are different colors of male Festaes.

 

[Bsixxx]

very nice festae

 

[DwarfCichlid101]

they're looking good, GL

 

[Piranhanut]

I'll try and take some photos of the little F2's and post later.

 

[Piranhanut]

That second pic looks female yet to me.

 

[Piranhanut]

Now that I checked the photo on a different computer the 2nd pic is blury on my monitor so I cant see the dorsal fin distinguishing its sex. On one monitor it looks female on the original post and again it looks male. What size is it now?

 

[Marc280106]

The first fish is 100% female, no quwstion about that. Piranhanut. I see you disagree with this notion, oh well. You'll come to the dark side in due time.

As for the second fish. It's still quite difficult to give a certain i.d on sex, but from the shot's you have provided here, i think it's a subdominant female.

If i remember correctly, you got these fish through Tangled up in cichlids, did you not? And if i also remember correctly, you intended to e-mail some pics to him and ask his opinion. Did you do this? What was his respnose?

 

[Piranhanut]

Less spangling and the darker dorsal leads me to beleive its leaning towards female but the other is defintely male. Thats a nice looking male in your avatar.