# help sexing my new borellii's!!!!



## borellii (Apr 11, 2008)

I just purchased 3 amazing royal blue apistogramma borellii's and I really need help sexing them!!! Any help is much apriciated because I am extreamly new to cichlid keeping. This will be the first time that I will be breeding cichlids but I have succefully bred Siamese Fighting Fish before.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

Are the adults? or sub-adult?

The males should be easy to spot if they are adults... more finnage, etc.

If they are subadults then it is much harder to tell the gender. Why do you need to know the gender?


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## borellii (Apr 11, 2008)

I intend on breeding them. unfourtunatly they are from a petstore so they are quite young.


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## Armandi_fishcarer (Aug 22, 2006)

Hi Borellii

The male is larger, and more colorful then the female Borelli

An excellent dwarf cichlid also, for any beginner thinking about keeping cichlids 

Regards Armandi


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## borellii (Apr 11, 2008)

k thx but right now they are all the same size and colour :-? so i have one that i think might be a male... but im not sure. the other ones all look the same. i have three from the same petstore.


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## Dutch Dude (Sep 14, 2006)

If the fish are around 1 inch or smaller it can be very difficult. Normally males are larger and show more color wile the females are more gray and are plumper. Unfortunately batches of fry get mixed and mostly the reason is a poor male female ratio. Young males and females do look a lot like each other. It will take some time becouse it is more obvious what the gender is.



> Why do you need to know the gender?


Well thats obvious,.....apisto's should be in a harem and in smaller tanks males kill each other. So he want to end up with one male and multiple females to be more successful in breeding.

The Borellii are just introduced in the tank and do need to get used to the new environment and your water prams. Within 2 weeks they will show more color as ever before. Do keep an eye on their behaviour! If fish start to clamp fins or hang in a corner I suggest to come to the board again.


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## borellii (Apr 11, 2008)

yeah right now i have one that i know is a male just because he has nice fins and his colour is coming right now.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

If you really want to get into breeding and do it right (producing healthy fry), you MUST buy multiple males and females and then let them pair up. You can rescue hounded males, but only once it's obvious that they are not accepted. I have never needed to concern myself with identifying the gender in any apisto breeding setup... that's why I asked.

If you are trying to pick on male and two females and get into breeding, then good luck... you just rolled the genetic dice. Your customers might not want to breed the fry amongst themselves.

If you just bought three fish to enjoy, then that would be different.

So if breeding is your answer, then you need a minimum of three more fish and not a way to tell gender IMHO.


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## jaeger222002 (Mar 30, 2008)

Borellii,

I wish you good luck and patience with your new fish. I purchased a group of borellii juveniles last September. They were all about a half-inch in length. Got 19 fish and ended up with 2 females. I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I spent staring at them thinking the same thing. At the end of the day, the only thing that ever seemed apparent between the males and females was the height of the dorsal fin. As the fish grew the females had dorsal fins that stayed very low to the body with repect to the other fish. This was very subtle though. All other markings were shared with the males until color began to develop. It took me 2 months to pull out 2 fish I knew were females and separate them with a couple of males.

Best part is that about a month ago both females spwaned for the first time and had fry free swimming fry within a day of each other! Good luck.

Brad


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