New member - Silver Dollar keeper

[nightfire2309]

Hi, I'm Alex, 51 year old Psychiatric nurse I work full time but in my spare time. I own an older Juwel Rio 450 tank which is home to three adult silver dollars and two turtles which are similar size to the dollars. A few months ago, I found a couple of newly hatched silver dollars, they were moved to a breeding tank within the tank itself and as they are now slightly bigger than a 50p I have released them into the tank and all seems to be going well.

I am keen to communicate with others who have knowledge of silver dollars as I have had these for a few years all in the tank together and assumed they were the same sex. I am struggling to work out which are male and which are female as they all appear the same. I have googled it and it's still not clear to me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Andy Sager]

Hi, I'm Alex, 51 year old Psychiatric nurse I work full time but in my spare time. I own an older Juwel Rio 450 tank which is home to three adult silver dollars and two turtles which are similar size to the dollars. A few months ago, I found a couple of newly hatched silver dollars, they were moved to a breeding tank within the tank itself and as they are now slightly bigger than a 50p I have released them into the tank and all seems to be going well.

I am keen to communicate with others who have knowledge of silver dollars as I have had these for a few years all in the tank together and assumed they were the same sex. I am struggling to work out which are male and which are female as they all appear the same. I have googled it and it's still not clear to me.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi and welcome to the club.
Sexing Silver dollars is not all that difficult but you have to be able to differentiate red colors. There are a few different varieties of Silver Dollars so the differences can be slight between the different varieties.
The common difference between the varieties is the male's Anal fin will be slightly longer than the female's anal fin. Look at all your Dollars that are similar size and compare them. If you got fry, one of them has to have a longer anal fin. Males will also have a darker red edge to their anal fin. Some females will show no red while others will have a tinge of red. ( With Red Hook Mytinnes, the males will also have a black edge outside the red in the hook. )
As is typical with most Tetras, if you were to look down on the fish from the top in the morning before feeding, the females will have a more rounded belly area while the males will be more slender. The bulge will be the eggs. If you do this after feeding, the bulge could be food.

On a side note, wild Silver Dollars used to be very hard to get to breed in a tank so if yours were wild caught, Congrats. There had been some big advances with tank breeding them in Asia in the 80s so more people have been having success with it from there. Either way, having fry survive in a community tank is a major accomplishment.

Hope this helps.