Sexing clown loaches

[Coryloach]

So how do you guys sex your clown loaches?

I've got 13 clown loaches, 9 of them are of good age and size, the rest are only young.

From the first batch of loaches, which I got 5-6 years ago, I think I have only one male and 5 females.
Basically, 5 of the loaches are wide in girth, have developed an arched sort of form. Only one is slender and elongated, no arch....That's all the difference I can see but considering they're the same age, ate and lived in the same tanks, etc...I think besides sex differences, there's no reason why one would grow elongated and the others wide girth. Two of the females are quite large in size, one being gravid at the moment as well so there's no mistake about this one.

Then I have another 3 loaches which I bought early last year. They were someone 's pre-loved pets abandoned in the shop. They were 5-6 inches when I got them, although they've filled out and grown a bit since.. 2 of them are slender and elongated, one is wider in girth so I consider them 2 males and 1 female. They're about the same length otherwise, as big as some of my females from the first batch of loaches, but not the biggest in the tank.

From the young ones, I have one that I bought as a baby less than 1.5 years ago. Its growing fast and developing the arched appearance already, being about 3.5-4 inches perhaps but already quite wide in girth for the small size. I can't tell about the rest as they're still too young but I think I may have just one male out of the 5 young ones. Time will tell about the youngsters, another year or two needed.

So if I sex loaches that way, I may only have 3 or 4 males out of 13 loaches.

One of my older loaches jumped out the tank last year. I found him on the floor when I got back from work. It was a slender/elongated loach I had raised from a baby, several years old. I dissected him. I found no eggs or any indication of him being a female. He always looked like a male alive or dead, about half the girth of some of some of his female buddies.

So they seem to start off all the same shape and size, then some grow taller, some stay slender....
All my loaches appear healthy, no bony appearance of any sort. The slender loaches are just different form/shape but not skinny. or sick....in case it crosses someone's mind...

So what do you guys think? Am I completely confused? How have you sexed your loaches?

 

[tlindsey]

Hope this can helphttps://goo.gl/images/vGDEHJ

 

[Coryloach]

I've read that. Unfortunately I see absolutely no tail differences I can tell...not in my loaches...None have hooked tails.

Unrelated to that, out of a bunch of corydoras I bred myself, some had hooked tails, some not. Some of the hooked tails were females, some males...In corydoras, it was just a genetic variance. In fact, I only remember and paid attention to the cory's tails because I had already read about clown loaches being sexed that way. In corydoras, without looking at tails, it is quite obviousl which are males, which females. The females are rounder and bigger, males slender and smaller....Plus they tend to spawn all the time so you can't get it wrong really.

 

[Coryloach]

At the moment the below is probably the worse picture I could give as an example but that's all I've got at the moment as I have my loaches in a pond.

That's 3 of them resting on their sides as some usually do in the evening after lights off.

The one on the top of the picture, above the hollow stone cave I consider a male. He's slender. The width of the body is uniform all around. See the width of his head is as much as the base of his tail, no hook appearance on the tail.

The one in the middle, just bottom right of the hollow stone is a female, arched, wide in girth, although the shadow is cutting her nose out of the picture...Sorry, that's the best I can give at the moment.

Ignore the one at the very bottom of the picture as he/she's younger, but so far appearing like a male.

 

[Coryloach]

Its easy to tell in this one below. She's a big gravid female...
Sorry about the picture quality....

Worse picture of same loach, taken with flash

And again the same loach but the picture was taken 4.5 years ago. See the arched top shape she always had?

 

[squint]

I think you'll just have to wait until they're old/big enough to become gravid.

 

[Coryloach]

Is 5-6 years old enough?

And even if they are old enough, they aren' necessarily going to get gravid,or are they?Also, from what I've read, if hormonally induced the females can produce eggs when they are as small as 3-4 inches. 9 of mine are bigger than that size and older than 5.5-6 years.

 

[squint]

I don't know if 5-6 years old is old enough. I think I started noticing it around 2014, maybe earlier. I figure my oldest are around 15 now. They don't need hormones to become gravid, only to actually spawn.

 

[Coryloach]

Yes, I know they don't need hormones to become gravid. But they do need to be conditioned so not all females would become gravid just because they're of age...If the conditions are right, a % of them becomes gravid but not all, is what I gather from some breeding attempts papers. Same happens to other fish that spawn readily in aquariums.

I have just one gravid female, which is definitely the oldest and biggest, the one on the above pictures in my previous post. I got her about 5 years ago. I had her for about 6 months when I took that old picture above, where she's leaning against her "tube" bed at the time, so she's definitely several years older than my first group of 5 loaches. I have a 2nd female almost the same size. /- 0.5 inch. She's not gravid, never has been, I've had her for over 6 years., longer than the biggest loach but she was a lot smaller than her at some stage. She caught on over the years, although both of them grew quite a bit.

The below is the 2nd biggest, non-gravid 6 year old female

 

[Coryloach]

longer than the biggest loach but she was a lot smaller than her at some stage

Just to clarify on the above sentence as I noticed it conveys the wrong message. My 6 year old non-gravid loach I raised from a baby is still 0.5 inch at least smaller than the biggest gravid loach I have. The big gravid loach was bought at around 5-6 inches size 5 years ago when the currently 6 year old non-gravid female was about a year or a year and a half old small enough loach. The two just caught up on size, both grew qutie a bit but the younger faster than the older.