Sexing my Festae.

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Circa4190

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Jan 15, 2009
430
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Carmel, Indiana
I've always wanted to picture perfect female Festae. Mine is about 5" now and the orange/red still isn't coming in as nicely as I would like. Would anyone be able to possibly sex the fish? Sorry for crappy quality, this was a few minutes after a hefty water change, and this little jerk will not sit still for me.RT1.jpg rt2.jpg rt3.jpg rt4.jpg
 
Male, the blue spangles are a give away. Males and females can both display bars from time to time.
 
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Male, the blue spangles are a give away. Males and females can both display bars from time to time.
I thought possible male as well because of the light colored dorsal fin, but I've never seen a male have bars that dark. Maybe I need to look at more festae.
 
Males will often bar up when stressed or excited.
These are mine watch for the bars on the male around 36 seconds to about 46. He saw a pebble in the sand and went to investigate.
 
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Since I don't see dark color in the dorsal, but do see spangling, it looks male to me.
The profile is very torpedo like, more of a "female" trait. But this may be because the cichlids you have it housed with, can be very dominant, which will often make a "male" instinctually display less dominant features (those that are somewhat plastic), like profile.
Here is a female, note the dark melanin in the dorsal, less steep profile and lack of spangles.

below an alpha male, note very steep profile, lots of spangles

Below a female without a male in the tank, sometimes without a male, females won't color up.

now below, the same female as above, but with a male in the tank

many male cichlids will display subordinate features if housed with more dominant tank mates.
 
Thanks for all the input, if we are correct on the He part, he's a monster. He's one of the more dominant fish in the tank despite being the smallest aside from 2 convicts. The Oscars just don't care, and the Tilapia has calmed down quite a bit since we got him.
 
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