Sexing Jewel Cichlids (any sub/species/strain)

[Rafini]

I just took some pics of my little baby jewels. they colored up very nicely in the last few days since I got them. the blue is very strong and one one of them has a lot of red, the suspected female;
In general males tend to be more elongate and overall more of an earth tone.
This guy I would wager is probably a male

This one could go either way

This is the true mystery, Very colorful, short and stocky so my initial thought would be female.
Although she does have quite a red jaw she is also the most colorful by far and from my experience the females always have the brightest red on their bodies.

I am by no means an expert and I haven't kept this fish in over 10 years, but I would probably guess that I have a male and two females. especially since I don't have two aggressively fighting and chasing eachother, its very harmonious but that could all change.

Any other theories or guesses on sexing these guys feel free to chime in

 

[Frank Castle]

I just took some pics of my little baby jewels. they colored up very nicely in the last few days since I got them. the blue is very strong and one one of them has a lot of red, the suspected female;
In general males tend to be more elongate and overall more of an earth tone.
This guy I would wager is probably a male

This one could go either way

This is the true mystery, Very colorful, short and stocky so my initial thought would be female.
Although she does have quite a red jaw she is also the most colorful by far and from my experience the females always have the brightest red on their bodies.

I am by no means an expert and I haven't kept this fish in over 10 years, but I would probably guess that I have a male and two females. especially since I don't have two aggressively fighting and chasing eachother, its very harmonious but that could all change.

Any other theories or guesses on sexing these guys feel free to chime in

Could always end up w/ a subordinate male wearing the female colors to avoid confrontations w/ the alpha male. Nice lookers there, are they the "Neon Blue" variant?

 

[Rafini]

Could always end up w/ a subordinate male wearing the female colors to avoid confrontations w/ the alpha male. Nice lookers there, are they the "Neon Blue" variant?

Yeah thats a common practice among lake Malawi cichlids, I wasn't aware that jewels practiced it too but I also read that the ancestors to all Lake malawi stock were most likely riverine cichlids muchlike the jewels. So they could very well use this behavior.

They were actually from Petsmart, if you feed your fish well and keep them in good conditions you would be surprised how good fish from seemingly low stock can look.
I wouldn't mind picking up some wild jewels if I ever see them available, they are not too common of a fish around here, I kicked myself for not getting the reds last time I saw them available.
Looking forward to working with this fish, sort of a back to basics.

 

[Frank Castle]

Yeah thats a common practice among lake Malawi cichlids, I wasn't aware that jewels practiced it too but I also read that the ancestors to all Lake malawi stock were most likely riverine cichlids muchlike the jewels. So they could very well use this behavior.

They were actually from Petsmart, if you feed your fish well and keep them in good conditions you would be surprised how good fish from seemingly low stock can look.
I wouldn't mind picking up some wild jewels if I ever see them available, they are not too common of a fish around here, I kicked myself for not getting the reds last time I saw them available.
Looking forward to working with this fish, sort of a back to basics.

yes, and they all evolved from Damselfish aand many can live in SW too Never underestimate the cichlid lol I learned that a long time ago.....they seem to manage pulling off things I never thought possible

 

[Rafini]

yes, and they all evolved from Damselfish aand many can live in SW too Never underestimate the cichlid lol I learned that a long time ago.....they seem to manage pulling off things I never thought possible

I was going to mention the whole damsel thing too but I didn't want to get proven wrong as I don't remember if it is really true or not. morphologically speaking and in terms of behavior they seem to share a lot in common lol.

I got a group of 6 rock kribensis (the ones with bright yellow females) 1m5f that I'm thinking of mixing with my jewels, I think they would make perfect companions

 

[Frank Castle]

I was going to mention the whole damsel thing too but I didn't want to get proven wrong as I don't remember if it is really true or not. morphologically speaking and in terms of behavior they seem to share a lot in common lol.

I got a group of 6 rock kribensis (the ones with bright yellow females) 1m5f that I'm thinking of mixing with my jewels, I think they would make perfect companions

lol found ANOTHER clutch last night....I swear these guys are worse than Convicts. Moved my Convict parents 2 weeks ago and even THEY haven't spawned again this quick. I moved my damn Jewels on TUESDAY and they just dropped another 100-200 eggs already.

 

[Rafini]

Heres an interesting question for jewel enthusiasts out there, How many can you keep in a tank? do they get less aggressive when there are more to disperse aggression? What about keeping them in a 120g aquarium? I`m moving my 3 guys over into my 120 soon and thinking of maybe picking up some other jewels to add to my group.

I find jewels are better parents, Maybe I just had bad convicts but they got bored of their spawn sooner than my jewels did. Jewel juvies are pretty easy to sell to an LFS than convicts too in my experience

 

[Frank Castle]

Heres an interesting question for jewel enthusiasts out there, How many can you keep in a tank? do they get less aggressive when there are more to disperse aggression? What about keeping them in a 120g aquarium? I`m moving my 3 guys over into my 120 soon and thinking of maybe picking up some other jewels to add to my group.

I find jewels are better parents, Maybe I just had bad convicts but they got bored of their spawn sooner than my jewels did. Jewel juvies are pretty easy to sell to an LFS than convicts too in my experience

I would say 3 to 5 pairs, depending on tankmates.....you'd probably be able to do more than 3-5 if you had bigger nastier SA/CA cichlids to keep the pairs from taking over anything. DEPENDS ON how many caves and hide spaces you have and how good of cover you set-up for the fry to disappear into. I don't think it matters in a 120 whether you have 6 pairs of Jewels or 3 pairs of Jewels and 3 pairs of Convicts as long as the tank, décor and tankmates are set correctly.

 

[Frank Castle]

hatch date for clutch #2, April 10, early morning. Another group of strong healthy looking wigglers. Previous clutch is about 1/4" - 1/2", eating F/T baby brine shrimp, crushed Tetra color flakes and crushed Hikari Bio-gold+ which they share with their tankmates, 60-70 Pink/Normal Convict-HRPs fry. Still no nest from the Geophagus brasiliensis, but lots of courting behavior nonetheless

 

[Frank Castle]

Heres an interesting question for jewel enthusiasts out there, How many can you keep in a tank? do they get less aggressive when there are more to disperse aggression? What about keeping them in a 120g aquarium? I`m moving my 3 guys over into my 120 soon and thinking of maybe picking up some other jewels to add to my group.

I find jewels are better parents, Maybe I just had bad convicts but they got bored of their spawn sooner than my jewels did. Jewel juvies are pretty easy to sell to an LFS than convicts too in my experience

Yo, this can't be right......the eggs hatched April 10th, but the babies are already free-swimmers and surfacing. The Convicts took 2 weeks to hit free-swimmer stage.......Jewels just develop faster and grow faster or what? IIRC, 2 weeks was standard for wigglers, yes?

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