Festae Update
- Thread starter Optimist
- Start date
I have no doubt that the festae in the first four pictures is a female. The first and third picture were taken with flash, therefore the dark band on the front of her dorsal fin didn't show up quite well. You can see it in the second and fourth pictures. I did give Rapps that email and he told me that he tried his best to give me two females, but that it was tricky due to the fact that he was putting his net into a tank of 50+ fish all in fright coloration. I really can't blame him. It's just that there are no distiguishable charactersics in the second festae that lead me to believe it's a definitely a male or definitely a female. I'll post some more updates as it grows.
Here are a couple of bad photos I took of my little guys this morning. The big one on the bottom left is a male and around the 2" mark and the little female to the right of him is maybe an 1". The top fish is also a female and around 1.5" . You can see the littlest female trying to color up when by my male.This little fish has shown its bars and top fin alot darker at times. The bigger female didnt want here picture tanken and wouldnt flare for the camera, but when by the male shes showing some brilliant coloring already. I'll try and take some better picures and post later. Both my females flare up showing their black dorsals and black bars when around my male as well as giving off an orange hugh. These fish are F2s that I picked up from someone that traded them at a Milwaukee fish store. I was given the bigger female because she was so beat up and paid $5 for the little female and $9.99 for the male I didnt want since I alread have 3 F0s but coudnt resist since they are so hard to find around here. Even at this age you can see the color difference between the sexes even when stressed. I was shocked when I bought these fish to see this coloring at such a young age. They looked like this at the sizes of .5" and 1" on the females and 1.5" on the male. The male has never shown his bars yet just staying a solid green color.
I couldnt pass them up for the price. I luckily had a meeting that required an eight hour round trip and these fish were only 20 min out of my way.
Jeff Rapps is usually pretty good about providing a pair in my experience. Here's one of the females I had prior to hurricane Katrina that I bought from him with my friend's loaner male. The pics aren't that great as they were taken with a crappy camera, but you'll get the idea. The male was 11"+ and the female was around 8"+. They unfortunately didn't survive the weeks of lost power after the storm.
