I walked into my living room and started watching my tank and I noticed my 6.5" male sen laying next to my 10" female polli and didn't think anything of it because the strange pile next to them seemed more interesting (a pleco was laying on one of my dels(not sucking his slime coat) and my afer was above them). When the pile dispersed I noticed the sen twitching and it took me a minute to realize he was trying to mate with the polli so I turned my phone on them and apparently they were not interested in making a porno and swam off
Well I wasn't expecting to walk in on this
- Thread starter thefredpit
- Start date
P. Polli and P. Senegalus are closely related, and should be able to create some beautiful, healthy hybrids. The offspring might even be fertile.
it would be nice but I think they are probably a little young atm I think the sen is less than a year old I got him in march at 3"
I might be wrong but I thought that males were sexually mature by the point you could definitely tell they were males. I know females mature a lot slower.
truthfully I'm not sure I know my 10" wc del just recently started showing but my 9" wc moke was already showing when I got him
My sens were easy to ID, I think even before maturity you can see some difference. There are so many factors in it I think... Especially the WC vs CB thing
Yours as well? My Senegal has a very large anal fin despite being quite small still, quite sure he's male but it's virtually impossible to guess with any confidence, as he's barely 12cm and quite slender. Eats like a motherfucker though, I was actually seriously worried he was going to choke earlier today on a huge(relatively) piece of prawn, but he somehow managed to get it down and went back for more.
Might well be as you say because of captive breeding. As the potential size of a brood gets smaller I suppose that they'd reach maturity at a smaller size as a consequence. In addition to this the Senegal I believe is supposed to develop at a faster rate than other Bichirs. May also be that generations of captive breeding shorten the life-cycle, but that's just wild speculation really, and might just apply in the very log run if at all.
Will be fun to see if both our fish turn out male as predicted
EDIT: My still very new albino Senegal is not showing any obvious gender signs yet aside from a pointy tail, but he definitely has a shorter body than the regular one and only 6 dorsal finlets, but is of similar girth though quite obviously younger. In fact he/she is the spitting of my Polli, if you shrunk him and stole his colour, which makes me wonder...
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Mine have the small fins of a female. Don't think at all it's males.
As for captive breeding they may well have smaller broods at a younger age but the Senegal is known as a slightly slowet growing bichir in general too but mine are my fastest growing fish. The physical differences between my Wc and Cb sens are huge physically and in appetite hehe.
As for captive breeding they may well have smaller broods at a younger age but the Senegal is known as a slightly slowet growing bichir in general too but mine are my fastest growing fish. The physical differences between my Wc and Cb sens are huge physically and in appetite hehe.