# Is this Obliquiden male or female



## jimmyjam923

Bought this lil guy at my LFS as a male Obliquiden. Kinda expected to see more color after a few days so now im beginning to wonder if its a female. LFS told me any color on the fins means its a male and just hasnt colored up yet. That could very well be true as he is smallest in the tank and subdominant. Other fish include a dragon blood, tomato hap, apache peacock.
















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## DJRansome

Victorians have a rep for not coloring well in an all male tank. IME this is true. What did he look like when he was alone in the quarantine tank for 3 weeks?

Looks male to me if only because of the point on the dorsal fin.

Was he/she hormoned?


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## jimmyjam923

The color hasnt changed much. Onoy change is when it gets agitated bars get darker. I didnt quarantine it so not sure how it would look by itself. It hasnt once shown any color at all though other than the red on the dorsal and tail

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## DJRansome

Sounds like what you would expect for a Victorian in an all-male tank.


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## jimmyjam923

Here is one when its agitated... It just got done chasing off a smaller fish that wanted to lip lock.. Still no color display at all though... The smaller one is a male nyererei (i think) and it shows vibrant colors at times and at other times is pretty muted. Is it possoble it just wont show any color at all even if its a male?
















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## DJRansome

Yes. Unless you put him in a separate tank with his females.

My nyererei was pale when mixed with mbuna as well. Major difference when he was in a mixed gender species tank.

In the mbuna tank he was basically black.


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## BC in SK

I think something is a little off with your zebra obliquidens. Looking at my own fish as well as many pictures on the internet, there isn't usually prominent red trim on the dorsal, nor typically red spotting on the caudal fin. And the black bars continue up into the dorsal fin. I would strongly suspect hybrid ( though I am not 100% certain)....or maybe it was hormoned?


jimmyjam923 said:


> LFS told me any color on the fins means its a male and just hasnt colored up yet.


.
I think that is true of a lot of Victorean-types, but really doesn't apply at all to _Astatotilapia latifasciata_. Zebra obliquidens would be sort of an exception in this regard, because it really doesn't have a lot of color on most of it's fins, except the anal fin, the males get red color. The bright color is on the body. Males get red around the mid body and red on the anal fin, but not usually bright colors on the other fins, just black markings.
I've got them in 4 tanks. All the males color up regardless of tank mates. I've got 7 young 8 month old males in my 90 gal. all male tank. Even at this age, they all have bright red on there bellies, bright red on the caudal fin, and no color on the other fins other then black markings. There young and bottom of the pecking order in what i would describe as a very rough tank (no females in the tank). And IME, even females zebra obliquidenswill show a lot of bright yellow and have prominent black barring, especially when no male of their species is in the tank ( or also if the female is higher up in their own species pecking order).


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## tires_6792

If you can look at the fish vent area. Males will have 2 circles same size. oo 
A female will have 2 circles different sizes. oO


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