Electric Blue Acara Male and Female?

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Bubba643

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So I had a smaller year old (what I thought was female) EBA in my 60 gallon tank. I then came across a large (also what I thought was a female) who was jammed into a 90 gallon tall display tank at my LFS with about 5 full grown plecostomus and about 30-40 different types of midsize community fish. Obviously cruelly overstocked, she looked miserable so I decided to rescue her and add her as a tank mate for my other EBR. Immediately after adding much to my surprise I started seeing pairing and spawning behavior (shaking displays, vigorously cleaning potential spawning locations, etc). It's been about a week or so and the behavior is building and my smaller EBA has gotten darker and bright blue while becoming more and more vigilant in chasing off the one other juvenile peacock I had in there. They rarely leave each other, no eggs yet but being my first experience with Acara I had a few questions.

One, am I right to assume they are male and female at this point? I assume they wouldn't behave this way if they were both females.

Two, if they are a pair, which is which? This species seems harder than most in seeing differences without venting. I've watched every YouTube video I can find and even seeing a female actually lay eggs I can't notice a difference physically between the male also pictured in the video.

Here are pics of both of mine what do you guys think?

EBA #1 rescue
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2 females might act like that.
I have seen cichlids lay eggs time and time again with only females?
The female should be noticeably fat if it is about to happen IMO.
Standard cichlid sexing tips; longer pointed fins male..
Other then that I know nothing believing my 7 EBA are all male!
 
Lighting is tough, bottom has the white side going.

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Figures... 5 minutes after I posted this the smaller EBA did this, lol. Still going as of this post about 100 eggs so far...
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Lighting is tough, bottom has the white side going.

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Here's a few more pics of the larger rescue. The smaller one is laying eggs still but I haven't seen much interest out of the larger one.

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How big is it?

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Probably a male. Feed some frozen bloodworm, see if that's gets him going

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Probably a male. Feed some frozen bloodworm, see if that's gets him going

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Done, we'll see. "It" is definitely helping defend the eggs periodically, but I haven't witnessed them being fertilized, it's possible I missed it. The female is on top of them and "it" is free roaming the tank stopping occasionally to assist but doesn't get closer than an inch above the eggs... female jabs at "it" as if to say "your turn, dummy"
 
2 females might act like that.
I have seen cichlids lay eggs time and time again with only females?
The female should be noticeably fat if it is about to happen IMO.
Standard cichlid sexing tips; longer pointed fins male..
Other then that I know nothing believing my 7 EBA are all male!



Yeah I can usually sex species pretty easy but for some reason with the EBA my brain and or eyes can't recognize the difference. Every mature one I see has pointy anal fins to me. Funny thing is I would have bet the house on the smaller one being a male, based on behavior, right up until it laid the first egg this morning, lol. I guess time will tell on these two. Been fun watching and guessing either way.
 
Probably a male. Feed some frozen bloodworm, see if that's gets him going

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Apparently he? likes the deep blue led setting and the bloodworms. Definitely more interested now, guess we'll find out for sure with the hatch or no hatch result in a few days...
 
Update: 7 hours in so far so good. Eggs are an amber color still which I assume means they are fertile? At least that's what I read from a few resources. Female is fanning them constantly and the other EBA gives her a break every now and then. Both are keeping the one other fish far from the eggs and no egg eating to this point.
 
24 hours in what do you think? Mostly fertile? The bright white is sand and looks like a few lighter white bad eggs I'm assuming. This is the clearest pic I could get sorry IMG_1376.JPG
 

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They look good!(y)



Awesome! I'm getting excited! Should I do a water change? Been feeding pretty heavy the last 48-72 hours. Haven't tested water but was perfect about 4 days ago. I'm a clean freak(aquariums only) so not changing water every three days or so starts to eat at me.
 
You could change a little if it doesn't PO them too much.
Fish are funny, most eat their own eggs or fry to keep another from eating them..
Strange type of defense?
 
You could change a little if it doesn't PO them too much.
Fish are funny, most eat their own eggs or fry to keep another from eating them..
Strange type of defense?



Yeah lol, guess they figure if they are gunna get eaten slowly by intruders might as well get a free meal for yourself? I've seen both eating a few but seems like more trying to pick out the bad eggs than full on buffet style. Assuming they make it to wiggle stage do you recommend nature or nurture approach? I'm an admirer of nature so I lean that way, Given time and space most things nature do better on their own than when we humans get in the mix imo.
 
I pull and artificially hatch eggs almost everyday!
Nature is great.We don't come close with our little glass boxes for some fish.
I stop putting effort into my rams after winter and have only once in 3 + years had a bonded pair raise their own fry.
Mind you eggs that add up to 200+ fry and these parents got me I think 3 fry.....


I usually recommend pulling the first in case you never the get the chance again.
Also to learn yourself.
Fish will spawn faster once fry are gone.
Hard part is getting them once they are wigglers.
 
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