How to be sure there female?

[rojowe]

I want to breed Convicts....
So I went into my LFS today and I looked at their convict tank, there were a few in there but there kinda small like 1.5 inches...how can I be sure I get a female and a male....i know females are suppost to have a pinkish belly. Is there any other way, i tried to look but they didnt seem pinkish or orangy at all...
Thanks

 

[SkidMark]

they sound like they're kind of small to sex. buy about 6 or 8 of them and when two of them hook up, sell the rest. the only thing is it's often difficult to get an lfs to take them so you might have to give them free

 

[rojowe]

well they only have like 4-5 so i could do that since there like 2 bucks each...kinda be f'ed if it turned out they were all male...lol

 

[SkidMark]

you could try another lfs too. now that i think about it, if you buy those 5, there's a good chance they're siblings. if you buy from different sources you could avoid inbreeding

 

[MonteSS]

At 1.5" you should see orange on the females' belliies. It should be pretty clear and obvious.

....Bill

 

[cchhcc]

I agree with MonteSS.

The smaller fish are likely females too. Male cichlids generally grow faster at a young age.....not always the case, but often true. Just get a good mix of sizes.

 

[Sab_Fan]

as noted, the orange belly thing is visible even at a very small size like 1.5" . . . if you don't see any, there probably aren't any females in the tank . . .

and it's not a bad idea, if you want to breed them, that you buy a male and female from different stores . . .

 

[TrikkyMakk]

At 1.5" you should see orange on the females' belliies. It should be pretty clear and obvious.

....Bill

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