Need help in sexing this Sajica

[Dragonis95]

hello everybody,

I recently (a few weeks ago) bought a young Sajica Cichlid to be with my Jack Dempsey pair.
So far so good, they get along fine.
But I still have no clue which gender it is, since it showed signs of being male as well as female.
Now it looks a little different, so I thought I might ask you for a little help...?

 

[newworld]

Easy female

 

[Toiletcar]

+1 female

 

[duanes]

Looks female to me too, with the bar extending up, and the profile being less steep than a normal male.
There are extenuating circumstances that sometimes influence gender presentation.
Since the JDs owned the tank first, a new male cichlid might show female characteristics to lessen territorial attacks from the male JD.
It is always dangerous to add a new cichlid to an already established pairs tank, and any new cichlid will instinctually realize its position, and do anything to save itself.
I've had cichlids that I thought were females, change to male characteristics overnight, once the dominant alpha male died, or was removed.
That said, it is often better to add non-cichlids to an already established tank.

 

[Dragonis95]

hi,

wow, I did not expect it to be that easy...
Great, so now I can look for a male Sajica
I already knew about the risk of adding new cichlids to an already established pair and it was difficult at first. But after a few fights everyone found his territory and now the Sajica has settled in the tank and as you can see coloured up very well since a few days, might be because I removed some young JDs to give to a LFS...

I wanted to add non- cichlids first, but was warned by others who tried it with several barbs platys etc... the Jacks killed everything...
Since mine are pretty peaceful whille not spawning and even then not very agressive, I might have tried it out, but I wanted some fish that can stand those "killers" without being eaten, chased or stressed to death.
So I found the Sajica, described as peaceful and calm, who, in my case, literally doesn´t give a **** about the Jacks, and seeing that they ignore her pretty much all the time. Might be also because the Sajica looks very different.

Thank you for your help, I will post some pics as soon as I found a male.

 

[Dragonis95]

hello again,

here I am, back from my little journey to my LFS ;-)

The results: a few extensions for my filter system and this little guy here:


the female reacted in the following way (female always behind the new one):






What I would like to know now: really a male or another girl?
Looking at the colour it seems like a female, but the behaviour of the "old" female would certainly be different and more territorial if it was one, right?
That the black spot does not go through the dorsal fin would also lead me to the suggestion it is a male...

Someone else of my opinion in here?
Every suggest on gender needed

Thanks for help again

 

[Rocksor]

looks exactly like the first one but smaller

 

[Dragonis95]

so either it is a female too, or it is still too young to see differences...?

Because I asked in the store for differences after I watched the fish that were in the tank there, some had red fins, some others these yellowish.
But not one fish behaved like looking for a partner or being a certain gender...

So... what to do?
The typical hump was not visible at any of those fish in there.

 

[Gourami Swami]

Very very pretty sajicas you have! Quite different from mine, who has no blue+yellow fins, but bright red fins. Interesting the variation, I'm wondering if maybe they are descended from different catch locations.
Yours both look more like females to me, but I have always found sajica difficult to sex unless they are large specimens (in which case head/body shape is a giveaway)

 

[Dragonis95]

thank you :-D

I know what you mean, in the internet you can find every variation of these fish, from yellow finned males to red finned females and even just dark brown specimens...
I think about geting two more from the store, which are red finned... there might be a male in between... the friendly person i asked to catch it out for me was of the opinion the pointed fin is an indicator for males, but my female has also this pointed fin. arghhh...
When I told her about the problem with finding male and female she said that they would have two colour variants in there, one yellow and one red... this would not indicate the gender...

What should I do now? Going there again and asking for one male again is quite... I don´t know... weird in a way... because they already sold me a "male" and will wonder why I come back that quick.

But buying a group off the internet is just too expensive... when I can get two males for 14 euros I will try that more likely than buying 6 which are more expensive and maybe all female.