Too blue to be male (JD)?

[Aqualoon]

Picked up a JD on 5/31 - I thought it to be a young male (picture below).

Now this is him/her as of a few minutes ago, I'm noticing a lot more blue on the gill plates...did I end up with a late blooming female? (sorry for the micro bubbles - WC day tomorrow and I run my tanks a bit lower in the summer due to heat as I want to cause a lot of surface agitation)

 

[AcsFoolMike]

Looks like a nice female to me.

 

[AngryCichlids]

Looks female? How old is it?

 

[Aqualoon]

Looks like a nice female to me.

That's what I'm starting to think as well.

When I first got him/her (as you can see in the first picture) there wasn't any blue around the gill plates at all. He was in a tank of similar sized JDs and you could defiantly tell the males from the females - females had straight blue gill plates even at that size. But as she/he is growing out I'm noticing the blues around the gill plate starting to come in. The thing is, they are still dots of blue but not the splotches/straight blue I have seen on proven females before.

 

[Aqualoon]

Looks female? How old is it?

I've had him/her for about a month and a half, the very first picture is from the day I picked em up. So I don't know how many weeks it takes a JD to reach that size.

Here's a few more shots.

Just wanted to add this tidbit below...

When I was watching the tank of JDs in the store, the females were easy to tell apart because they looked like this...

And as you can see from the first picture - doesn't have the blue on the gill plate like that. And I've been looking at other female JD pictures and it's always that solid blue on the grill plates like that. However, the male JDs have the spotting around the eye but then little to no coloration below that - which my JD has.

So basically, I'm back to where I started being unsure.

 

[flowerpower]

I don't see enough blue on the gill plate to be sure either. Give it some time.

 

[JC09]

male. no coloration on gill plate, my male has same colors

 

[Aqualoon]

male. no coloration on gill plate, my male has same colors

Since yours is a few inches bigger then mine, did he ever develop spangling along the body? Mine seems to have spangling along the head but near the tail nada.

 

[dempsey420]

kinda borderline. how long is it? i kept going back and forth w/ mine till it hit about 4" then i could tell female

 

[Aqualoon]

kinda borderline. how long is it? i kept going back and forth w/ mine till it hit about 4" then i could tell female

S/He is right around the 4" mark.