Is it Male or Female?

[Ava333]

How often does this happen??

I've been watching my group of 2" Met. Greshakei Albinos trying to figure out the M/F ratio. I had one that was colored like a male but the fins were more rounded like a female. I was stumped but I figured time would tell. Now she's my first holding female of that group! Yay!!!

Her position and actions in the group seemed kinda strange to me at first. She lightly picked on all the other females and sub-dom males, but the Dom Male didn't treat her as rough as the sub-dom males. Guess she's just the Dom Female?...

Pic 1--a sub-dom male
Pic 2--my color confused Female
Pic 3--better look at her rounded fins
Pic 4--an average colored female

[danotaylor]

congrats greshakei momma!

[Ava333]

Thanks! Their one of my favorites. 😍

[Kulasik]

she could just be LGBT, youll just have to accept her life choices...

[Ava333]

Lol. I must be getting old. I had to Google those initials; all I could figure out was the "L & G"! 😆

[Regalblue]

Fins rarely make a determining factor anymore. Its best to vent them & be sure.

[Ava333]

Regalblue, I was going to say, "out of the 30+ Mbunas in my tank, she was the only one that stumped me using the color & fin shape". But I'm glad I caught myself before I put my foot in my mouth!!! Cause I'm still having a hard time determining/guessing at the sex of 2 of my Lion Mara Rocks! 😳Color, fin shape, and even behavior is not helping in that case. I could catch them and vent, but I'm ok not knowing. But YES, venting is best way to sex fish.

All that being said....the "color & fin shape guess" works ok. (Yeah, I know, I know. And I might not think that for long either.) However, I don't know if I would trust it if I was trying to pick out much needed females. But with 8 of each species in my tank, I'm not sweating it if I get it wrong.

[Ava333]

Update: This is kinda off topic but I thought I'd share it anyways. Greshakie mom refused to spit her fry. So after she was over a week "over due", I stripped her. They babies looked way too thin, like pitiful. One was so bad it looked like a tadpole! But they're all eating and I haven't lost any yet.

This was her first clutch. But I think the problem was that my tank didn't have a spot she felt comfortable spitting the fry in. I have rocks/hiding places but I don't think it was enough. I just purchase another 20 lbs of rock and I have a lot of Anubias, Java fern, and Amazon Sword on it's way. (Hopefully the plants will make it. If not, I'm still ok with it.) Time to break up sight lines and fix the rock issue. I still might pull the holding females a week or so before they should spit and let them hang out in a tank by themselves until they're ready. Just have to see how it goes.