Sexing Blue Ram!

[yhbae]

I went to the LFS yesterday, hoping that they have some Blue Rams in stock. Lucky me... I found a whole new batch that arrived few days ago. I looked at most of them and had hard time determining which is male and which is female... I asked the owner and he tells me that 99% of them are male since females don't have a very nice color so most customers simply don't buy females!

Yuck. So I looked again at each one and chose the largest and the most colorful one (which I hope is a male) and chose one of the smallest and the lest colorful one (where there is a 1% chance that it is a female... ). I bought two since they had the special of 2 for 1...

Both are under 2 inches, and looked still young.

Once arrived to my tank, the larger one chases around the little one although not all the time. During feeding time, this behaviour repeats.

Here's the picture of the larger one:

And here's the picture of the small one:

And here's both together:

So, did I get lucky and found a female one or did I end up with the smallest and the ugliest male in the tank?

 

[loach]

A female will have a pink belly (which gets pinker when she's ready to breed). A male will have a longer 'spike' at the front of the dorsal fin. From memory the pink belly doesn't appear in very young rams unfortunatley.

My female Ram was just as colourful as my male, and for some reason the fin on the female was longer, so I recommend the belly colour as the best test.

Word of warning, in my experience even though they were very placid in my community tank (tetras and loaches) they got fairly aggressive when breeding and seemed to hate the Clown Loaches the most - keeping them baled up in a cave 24/7.

Good luck!

 

[yhbae]

Arrggg... So I guess I will have to wait until they become mature to find out if I have a pair or not? I believe they have at least another good inch or so of growth to go before they are fully mature.

I read about those blue dots within the black region, but none of mine really features significant amount of black region. The smaller one hardely has any black regions at all!

Thanks for the warning on the aggressiveness during breeding time - I plan to have a separate tank for them during breeding time... I hope I can detect the sign before any casualities (especially panda cories which are somewhat small and fragile...)

 

[loach]

I don't think you have to wait until full maturity. The ones I had were bred by a shop worker where I bought them, so they were about 2 months old when I got them and already there were signs of the sex.

They didn't worry the pandas I had nearly as much as the clowns for some reason, but my warning might have sounded worse than it was, as they didn't do anyone any damage at all - I just felt sorry for the clowns stuck in their cave (it was a good excuse to upgrade to 2 tanks )

 

[Voodoo Chilli]

I'd say by the amount of color visible in the pictures (although they aren't clear enough for me to tell whether they're male or female) that they ARE mature enough to sex. The most reliable way to do so is to look at the bellies: males are a bluish/purplish color, while the females get rosy/pink bellies. You can also look at the dorsal fins- the second and third dorsal rays on males will usually be more elongated than female dorsals. I'm not sure why the shop guy told you the females aren't as colorful as males as they look almost identical (hence the difficulty in sexing them!).

If you're interested in a breeding pair, the best plan of action is to get six fish and let them pair off themselves. Six almost always mathematically works out with at least one male/female pair.

 

[Scottw68TN]

Yeah the shop guy was probably just guessing applying a common way to sex some fish. Blue m/f rams are both very colorfull. When I got mine I used the elongated fins to pick them. Don't know if I was right but I like them and they like each other so if they don't breed I'll get them dates later.

 

[dralarms]

Yeah the shop guy was probably just guessing /quote]

We get that alot don't we. It's a crying shame that people don't have more knowledge in the field thay have chosen.

 

[Scottw68TN]

yesterday a girl (manager) at the petsmart told a guy he floated / acclimatized his yo-yo loach to long thats why it died. He only did it for an hour! When he asked what could it eat she said flake and couldn't think of anything else (which it will but.....) I told him later the numerous foods they like and need.

 

[Guest]

We get that alot don't we. It's a crying shame that people don't have more knowledge in the field thay have chosen.

It is hard to hire knowledgable people for low pay. Retail pay stinks! Ya get what ya pay for.

I'd love to work in a lfs, could even manage one if given the chance, but there's no way any of them could come close to what I make in the business world. I think this goes for many of us here.

 

[Madame_X]

I wouldn't be too hard on your LFS for not knowing how to differentiate the sexes between the rams. I've been unable to find a reliable way to tell in all the things I've read on the internet.

I have two Bolivian Rams, and it appears they are even more difficult to sex than the blue rams. I've read everything from the second and third point on the dorsal being longer or darker, the color on their bellies or the bellies on the females being rounder while the males are a bit concave, and somewhere I even read that the female's faces are a bit more blunt.

My LFS recently had a tank of gorgeous Bolivian Rams and I would love to pick up a couple of females, but he just couldn't make me any promises. My tank isn 't big enough to take a chance on getting two more males. There is already a lot of territorial "ramming" going on! But that's what makes them fun. And they never hurt each other.

Now, if I wanted to know anything about discus, I would completely trust this guy's judgement. That's their specialty and they have some of the most beautiful ones I've ever seen.

 

[medge00]

i usually find that the males have a darker stripe that goes through their eye region.... at any rate the pink belly on a female is nearly always a sure sign.

 

[dralarms]

I'll never figure out all this stuff.

 

[yhbae]

They both seem rather comfortable in the tank now - they are as active if not more so than the male Platy. I thought Rams are shy - these always come to the front area, swimming against the current, almost standing still. Very easy to take pictures (although I need more light to get clearer pictures). Harlequins are million times harder to take pictures...

They seem to eat the flakes, FD tubifex worms and BBS. So far, so good...

Tonight, I'll watch out for the pink belly - I didn't notice any yesterday. Also the size of dorsal fins are relative - without looking at the female one first, it's hard to tell if their dorsal fins are "small enough" to qualify as a female... Hmmm...

Thanks for the feedback!