can you have too many females for your male?

[four_by_ken]

I haven't heard of that either.

I thought only color.

[sniceley]

I have found that too many females and breeding slows way down. I like to keep about a 1 male to 5 female ratio with most of mine to promote breeding.

[TrailerParkFishTanks]

This is all good info. I will pull the dominant male when I set up another tank. I can't put him in the other tank with the maleri peacocks. If the dominant male loses his status will his fin lose length? Or just color?

[four_by_ken]

Sorry to be the pessimist... but, I just dont see the fin length changing as the fish is the dominant male or not.

Usually the more dominant male is also the one that has the longer fins... brighter colors, etc.  The color changes... but I dont see the body shape changing.

Meaning... you take a tank of females and toss in a very submissive male and all of sudden his fins will change, etc.  It will get more color... but, not necessarily TONS of color. 

A submissive fish will always (of course there are exceptions) be a "lesser" of a male.  But, will look best when other males are not around.

Am I making sense?

And also... please correct me if I am wrong here.

[TrailerParkFishTanks]

That makes sense.

[Super Turtleman]

A submissive fish will always (of course there are exceptions) be a "lesser" of a male.  But, will look best when other males are not around.

I agree that IMO the fins won't change shape. But I disagree with the statement above. I don't think there is a "lesser" male in terms of appearance. If you remove the dominant male, the next one to step up could be just as good or better than the prior tank boss. It just depends on the fish.

[four_by_ken]

Actually... you completely agreed with what I was trying to say.   

[Maize-N-Blue-D]

The fins do not change once they grow out, it is just as the fish are growing out the fins stay more female like until the fish gets big enough to start becoming a dominant fish, then his fins will finish growing out and become more pointed. I've seen it occur in my tanks,  I have an Ngara Flametail who was a dominant fish in one tank, his colors glowing and his fins were always flaring out.  Then he became sick and was being picked on heavily by some of the other fish.  So I moved him to another peacock tank.  I thought he was going to die, he looked like he got bloat and he did get ICK.  So I treated with metro and he survived, but he is now a sub-dominant fish in that tank. The fins remained the same however his color completely vanished...I am working him back to dominant status though as he is eating very well now but the coloring is still on the faded side.

I also had a dominant Ruby Red that I placed in a tank with another larger dominant Ruby Red.  After several weeks his color completely faded out as well and I now have him in the same tank as the Ngara Flametail.  It seems that I have an aggressive tank and a lesser aggressive tank of peacocks... But the lesser aggressive tanks fish are smaller than the aggressive tank maybe by 1" or so.  So I imagine that this tank too will turn into an aggressive tank once the fish mature more...