Help Sexing GBR

[Botanica]

Hi again. I am wondering about the sex of these german blue rams my husband bought for me. I have read every bit of info I can find on sexing them and just get more and more confused! So...I think the big one is a male and the younger one is a female...but maybe not.
Thanks for the help!

Male??
















Female?

 

[BHead707]

pink near the belly on the second leads me to female..the first i would say male but im no expert. good luck

 

[Chronos313]

From what I know you have a male and a female

 

[Botanica]

Well...I was kinda hoping someone would say they are both males...that would explain why the big one isn't very nice to the little one...:-(. Do you think they might eventually become friends at least?

 

[Cornstar]

I have a male kribensis and female kribensis, and initially the male was quite aggressive, but it turned out it was to show his dominance and now the have bred twice.

I think GBR and kribensis are quite similar.

 

[Andy Sager]

Sexing Rams

Hi again. I am wondering about the sex of these german blue rams my husband bought for me. I have read every bit of info I can find on sexing them and just get more and more confused! So...I think the big one is a male and the younger one is a female...but maybe not.
Thanks for the help!

Male rams have an elongated 2nd, 3rd and sometimes 4th dorsal spine. In larger fish, especially ones that have been in a tank for a while, if you don't see the elongations, the fish is a female HOWEVER, when the fish are new, sometimes during shipping and handling at the pet store or wholesale house, the male's elongated fins deteriorate so they look like females. If you are trying to breed them, put 4 to six younger fish together and let them pair off. Make sure you have a number of different places for them to hide and pair off without killing off their tank mates. If you can't wait, get some larger fish that you can better sex. Larger females also tend to have a more rounded abdomen from the eggs they are holding.
If you just want them to get along, put in more hiding places for security until they adjust to each other.

Hope this helps...

If you go to this thread on this site: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f82/gbrs-ready-to-spawn-lots-of-pics-188667.html There are some exellent pics of the pair so you can see the difference in the dorsal fins between the two.

 

[Botanica]

Thank you guys for your help! I'm pretty confident that I have a male and a female. They do seem to be coming around a bit..not chasing her away so much anyway...so we'll see. I want to see how these two do before deciding what else to stock...if anything.