Finally, JDs have laid Eggs again!

[Dragonis95]

My youngsters are somehow deciding on their sexes, so here are the actual ones considering the blue areas on the gill.
Two of the smaller ones I didn´t catch on a pic but they seem male to me...
What would you say? Am I right with my guessing? They grow like hell so it should be clear in 2 weeks or so...


Sure a female, clear blue area on the gill

first guess was female, but now I have no clue because this side is losing blue...


...while the other side of the same fish has some more blue around the gill...

this little one could still become a male, he shows no blue on the gills.

 

[YankeeJack]

You take GREAT pics! Love the close ups. In my experience that largest of the spawn has always been a male. Always for first time for everything though.

 

[Dragonis95]

Hey

Thank you, I am proud to hear my pics are looking that good it takes about 20 pics and much time, food and patience with the fish to have one that good...
For me it has also always been this way with the biggest one being a male... but this one is too blue to be male or am I wrong?
I mean... so much blue... the other one loses the blue and is almost the same size... so... biggest one female and second biggest male? Is that possible? Or will it lose all the blue and turn into a male spontaneously?
I hope you can help me with this. I would really like to know the sex of these beauties...
Maybe it depends on water temperature? I heard it from others who then had more males with colder water and more females with warmer water... but it is only a theory...

 

[Dragonis95]

Since I was bored and had some time I took more pics to get the head markings as close as possible. Here we go, I have taken pics of the two biggest ones.
The female:
The blue area of the gill is clearly visible here, so I am absolutely sure it´s female

And here we have the "female" who turned out to become more and more male:



Even if you see little parts of blue on the gills this marking seems to me like it will be a male, since the blue disappeared and did not show up again like in the female face...

Only strange thing: The female is more colourful on the body than the male... But we will see. Maybe everything changes again within the next weeks. I´ll keep you updated.

 

[Dragonis95]

hey,

for a longer time the little ones were shy and I was busy, now I found time to take pics of them again.
I think they have become two females and two males. The rest I have given away to a lfs.

What would you say? Is the second female really a female or does it just have more coloured gills than usual? The genital papillae are not showing that good yet...
They are not as beautiful as their father was, but still not bad.
And yes, I do feed them too much at the moment. They love bloodworms, gammarus and mealworms so much it is incredible... Right now they are 6-7cm (2.3 - 2.7inch) in length. The "bad" growth is due to fewer water changes, my bad, I will get that going again once per week with 60 percent.

First (dominant) female


Second (subdominant) female

First (dominant) male

Second (subdominant) male

 

[bobblehead27]

I loved reading this thread from the beginning .I was so sad to hear about your male, he was gorgeous! Great pictures too. I'd agree with your assessment for which ones are males vs females .

 

[YankeeJack]

Hey Dragon - i think you are probably right in predicting the gender of the fish in the pics. I have had one instance where I had one that I thought was a male for sure and then it ended up laying eggs! Go figure. Made me wonder if there is some biologic thing like saltwater clownfish, where the gender can change.

Great pics! Yes, it does take some patience, but you have the gift.

Looking forward to more pics of your success!

 

[Dragonis95]

hey everyone,

big thanks to all of you who are following my post!
It honours me to have such big response to it.
Yes, I am still sad about my beautiful big boy. But time will tell whether the youngsters have his genes or not. Right now they are stunningly beautiful and much stronger than my last batch.
I still feed them a mix of bloodworms, gammarus, mealworms, pellets and krill, and yes, I vary the composition of this from day to day so they don´t get picky about food.

YankeeJack : Thank you for such a compliment! It takes much much time and much money. If you could imagine how expensive freeze-dried food is here in germany. Jesus...
4 Euros for 100ml of Tubifex, and 8 Euros for 400ml of bloodworms...
That eats up a lot of money even for "only" 7 fish.
Good thing that my shrimp have more than enough food for the next year

Since the babies are no babies anymore, I will close this thread in the next months with a final collection of pics when they finished their gill colouration and found their place in the group.

Thanks to everyone who gave me tips on raising them up, you all helped me a lot!

see you next time

 

[Dragonis95]

since I want you to know how my "little new male" who is new partner of the big female since the dead of my own raised male, has developed since, I took a pic of him.
Look how stunning he is! He became as big as the female within few months.
Feeding high quality proteins can change everything...

 

[bobblehead27]

Gorgeous