Veija Zonatus sexing.

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Chambo989

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 22, 2019
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Picked this Vieja Zonatus up a couple of weeks ago, I'd never seen them before so thought I'd give it a try. The guy in the shop said it was a male but I'm not sure how he could tell as from what I've read up on them it's quite hard to tell until they're adults.

Just wondered if anyone was able to tell. I'm not looking to breed or anything, more just curious. 20191217_164044.jpg
 
I've kept lots vieja and they sometimes are tricky to determine gender, but at first glance it looks like female. Whatever it is, it is a beautiful specimen. The zonatas I've kept weren't that tall and round as juveniles. What legnth is your beauty? My zonatas where more compressed in height like a juvenile fenistatus or briedorhri. Getting tall with size/age. This looks tall and round like juvenile maculicada or synspillian shape...but I don't see any traces of black belt or red head. And I am not implying hybrid. Not often do you see a zonata with such nice color, but I had a male with almost identical blue markings and a touch more red so I know they exist. Regardless you have a real show stopper there. Keep us posted
 
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Hi, thanks for your reply.

I've also suspected it's a female as I cant see any bump appearing on the head. It's around 5 - 6 inches at the moment and growing pretty quick.

It does display some nice colours, even the tail seems to vary, sometimes it's almost fully red.
 
Niki_up said:
That is a beauty of a fish.

I’m not very familiar with this fish but if I had to guess it looks like it is in a breeding dress in the last pic. Maybe a female breeding dress?
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Hi, yeah I imagine that is her breeding dress. Although in this case I believe it was a show of force. She seems to occasionally get her war paint on if my female GT is getting too interested in her or if its feeding time. Her head turns bright white leaving the two bars across her face. It's amazing to watch!
 
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Predator07 said:
Nice!!.. Where could I get vieja zonatus ?
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I'd imagine they're a bit easier to find in the USA with them being native. But I couldn't tell you where im afraid as I'm in the UK theyre a bit more scarce over here, this is the first one I'd seen after years of keeping fish.
 
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