Festae

[Grum]

Thought I'd share a couple pics of my festae's. I bought them around 8 months ago at around 1inch. The biggest is now about 4.5" and the other around 4". I'm still trying to figure them out as in sex but I'm pretty sure the biggest is a male? The less dominant one is staying very drab in colour. They will be in a different tank soon but I'm kinda surprised on how ballsy they are at such a small size. . They dont move for the 8-9" saums. Just wish they didn't hide as much when you go to look at them. I heard they can be pretty shy.

 

[Jexnell]

I would say it's a male.

Males typically have what looks like a bright shiny spot on each scale. Females don't have this.

Here is a young one I had

And an older one


Not my pic, from Google

Here you can see both. How he has the bright spangling and she don't.

 

[duanes]

Another way to normally distinguish gender, is that males have blue/irridescent spots in the dorsal and anal fins, and females don't
Here is a posterior shot with male, left (note the spangles.......................now right 2 females

Below, also note the dark, solid pigment is the dorsal of of the female
.
In your shots both appear to have spangling
I edited you 2nd shot to get a better look, and this is it


Males do not "typically sport that dark pigment (as below), and again note the spangling of the male

Females also often sport, a blue solid color in the dorsal

 

[Grum]

Thank you guys. Sorry for the late reply. I've been flat out with the family. I appreciate the input. I was leaning towards them being males. I will probably move on the smaller one of the two. It's been a while since owning any real sort of aggressive cichlids. I just can't get past on how shy they are. The last fish I owned that was this shy was a mangrove jack.

 

[dmyersWv]

Definitely not glass bangers. Very aggressive with other fish but shy with people.