All the females I raised from a number of spawns, were always more torpedo shaped than males, and never developed an even slightly male look.
I always had to separate fry to different size tanks, or with dividers by size.
Until mature enough to spawn, larger ones would always kill or even eat their smaller siblings, even in largish tanks of over 100 gallons.
When trying to raise fry, if they made it to a size, where they couldn't slip thru egg crate, I'd divide up 2 or 3, 50 gal tanks into 4 or 5 sections each to keep them apart.
Getting a pair , is often not as simple as with many other cichlids, I lost many juvies to cannabalism.
And I had to use the same strategy with their close cousin haitiensus, or they too, would kill each other.
With haitiensus I went thru 20 before getting a pair.
I always had to separate fry to different size tanks, or with dividers by size.
Until mature enough to spawn, larger ones would always kill or even eat their smaller siblings, even in largish tanks of over 100 gallons.
When trying to raise fry, if they made it to a size, where they couldn't slip thru egg crate, I'd divide up 2 or 3, 50 gal tanks into 4 or 5 sections each to keep them apart.
Getting a pair , is often not as simple as with many other cichlids, I lost many juvies to cannabalism.
And I had to use the same strategy with their close cousin haitiensus, or they too, would kill each other.
With haitiensus I went thru 20 before getting a pair.
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