# Male or Female that is the question



## eyezak (Feb 22, 2008)

How can you tell between a male and female Front?


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## bitterman (Mar 27, 2006)

Vent them

http://www.cyphos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17630


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## big clint (Apr 5, 2008)

The male is usually bigger and has a larger hump on his forehead.  :drooling:


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## chago (Mar 4, 2008)

check this link also.... is quite usefull!

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=168181


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Other than the alpha male being bigger and more aggressive than his tank mates that you buy as juvies at the same time(and even that is not 100 percent, just likely) the only way to tell is wait till they are 5 inches or more and try to vent them . Venting is when you look at the genital area for slight difference in size and shape of opening. Even then if you dont do it often it is hard to tell. As the juvies grow in size the alpha male will become appartent and i understand that you can then remove him and the subdominant male will take his place and have a hormone spike of sometype and end up with a growth spurt and more dominance, then remove him and keep doing that till you have all females in the tank . You should be able to tell all females when one of the fish no longer takes the alpha position with growth spurt etc... Good luck. I have a bunch of juvies and fry and im just letting them grow out together then when they are bigger i will try to vent sex them.


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

By the way, this is OT. One of my 6 fronts is growing faster than the other 5. Although another one is slightly larger. I assume its the alpha male. But it gets chased away by the smaller front. This I don't get. I thought the bigger front will be the dominant one. How come I am seeing different? Thanks


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Was the bigger fish the same size as the others when you bought them ? If it was it might just be that another fish is going to try to be the alpha. My alpha is definetly the most aggressive, no doubt about it. It also is the biggest. Not sure what to make of the biggest fish not being the most dominant. Could be the alpha female i guess and the smaller one is the matching male ? Maybe someone else has some thoughts on it.


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

Yes, when I first got them, they were all pretty much the same size. Suddenly this bigger one had a growth spurt. I thought wow, this must be the alpha male. But while staring at the fish, I notice one smaller front sometimes would get close and try to pick on it. The big front would scatter away fast. Maybe its a she-male alpha. LOL!


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Not sure. That is oppisit what is going on in my tank LOL. Just keep an eye on them as they mature, you should be able to tell the alpha male by the way he herds the others and the way they react to him. The other fish will try to stay out of his way . They will go out of their way to not make him angry LOL. When you see that then that should be the alpha male.

Maybe your just real lucky too. Its possiable that the largest fish is a male, maybe even THE male and your other fish are females. Maybe that one that chases him is his alpha female ? That would be nice.


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

Yes, very strange as far as I can see. But will see how it pan out in a coming months. By Blue moori is really growing now. Nice to actually grow some fish rather than seeing them die off one by one due to my ignorance. This forum is just way to cool to describe. :thumb: :dancing:


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

Yes, very strange as far as I can see. But will see how it pan out in the coming months. My Blue moori is really growing now. Nice to actually grow some fish rather than seeing them die off one by one due to my ignorance. This forum is just way to cool to describe. :thumb: :dancing:


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

I have a blue moori too. Got it as a one inch baby many months ago. Growth is outrageously slow compared to even my fronts !! It was 1 inch in nov. when i bought it and it is barely even 2 inches. I would not be suprised to find it only 1.5 inches !! Did yours grow fast at the young age or did it slow grow then get a spurt ? I do really like the fish though. He has the most vivid dark blue i have seen .

Thanks 
CG


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

I got the fish when its 4". So an extra inch over 2 months is really noticeable for me. I have kept blue moori and fronts before and all of them died due to my ignorance. I barely see the fish grew in size before they were all lost to bad water change technique and poor water parameter control.

Compared with its siblings still at the LFS, they are tiny compared to my Moori.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Im glad to hear your having better luck now. Water conditions are the most important thing for your fish. That and tank size.


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

Yes, very true and I owe this all to this forum. Really helped me.

But you can see from my register date, I obviously didn't listen before. Took me 5 years to realise this. hehe..


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

By the way, is this Blue Moori of mine a cross breed? It just look different from the other moori I have.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

I was lucky. My father was a avid cichlid keeper when i was growing up. He had a 100 gallon tank with oscars and other cichlids. All decorated in natural themes of rockwork and large driftwood , sand and plants. It was like a underwater wonderland for me. So i used to watch him, how he used to care for the fish, feed the fish, clean the tank etc..., Because of him i had a very good base knowledge i would otherwise never have had. If things had been different im sure i would have had all kinds of problems , the kind most people make when starting out. So dont beat yourself up too much. The important thing is you grew as a fish keeper, saw you needed to change some things and did it. Congrats.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

Im not sure if it is a hybrid or not. I have two blue moori, one seems to be pure, very dark blue, has the black splotches juvie moori have, and it has white lips. The other one looks like yours. The one that looks like yours will sometimes have vertical barring that comes and goes depending on its mood. Other times it looks exactly like yours. I have a friend on another cite that just bought some very expensive fish and her moori looks like yours also. My fish has very faint speckles that resemble eggspots on its anal fin. These spots are barely noticalbe, small and faint. I can also occationally see the blotchy black horizonal barring the moori normally have under its black barring, so i just dont know what to make of mine. I have not kept or bred moori before so im new with them. I would say since my friend also has one exactly like yours ( that i dont believe is a hybrid)that you have a pure moori. Just keep in mind i am not a moori expert. Here is my fish that i think looks like yours. One pic is when he is at rest and relaxed and the other shows his black barring when stressed. What do you think, is it the same as your fish ?
This pic appears so blue because i had marine glow blue bulbs in at the time:


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

Hmm! very interesting. Thanks for the pictures. Will wait and see as it grow older.


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

The fish on the left in the bottom pic is a pure moori for sure. The one in question is next to it on the right. I think it really resembles your fish, mine just might be mixed with something.


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## Alex0607 (Jul 26, 2003)

HI Cichlidgirl,

Thanks for the kind words. I am really enjoying looking after my cichlids.

Coming back to your last post. I always though a blue moori has this distinctive look about it. But your fish and mine just doesn't have that distinctive look about it. So not sure what it is really. Oh Well!


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## cichlidgirl1 (Sep 17, 2007)

I have seen pictures of some c.moori that are silver rather than blue. maybe this is what they look like when the silvery ones are young. Thats all i can think of unless they are hybridized. Anything is possiable. I have noticed that my fish seems to have two sets of dark markings one set matches up with the typical c. moori juvie markings and then the fish has a second set that is almost superinposed over them, those are the vertical bands. It is the strangest thing. I just dont know what to make of him. He also has the same dark stripe from under the eye to the mouth area and has the tiny small lips low on the face and a perfectly rounded sloping head like a c. moori. He schools with the moori and sifts sand like the moor. He even swims non stop like the moor. Its those vertical bands and the little white speckles on his anal fin that throw me off. Cant figure him out. Oh, well, i like him no matter what he is.


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