# My Jack Dempsey update (Photos)



## marinerm10 (Feb 2, 2010)

Hi I thought I would post some updated photos of my Jack Dempseys. Here is my male at 8 and a half inch he has grown 1 and a half in the last 4 months.... Just over 18 months old now. He is living with a big Malawi cichlid my friend gave me in a 60 Gallon with a Plec.










Here is my female who is living in a 75 Gallon with a Herichthys Carpintis and a smaller JD who I still don't know its sex.










By the way.......could anyone please sex my Herichthys Carpintis. I have always said Male but maybe other keepers could officially confirm it for me? Here it is...










Here is my smaller JD who has grown a little bit but can anyone sex it...I keep thinking it might be a male?










Thanks guys


----------



## olsonwa07 (Jul 9, 2010)

these guys look absolutely amazing! I have a male EBJD and a female in my 55, I can't wait for them to get this size! How long did it take for them to be calm enough to swim around without freaking out?

your smaller one looks like a male if you ask me, but again I'm kinda new to them too.

What do you feed them?


----------



## marinerm10 (Feb 2, 2010)

Thanks olsonwa07. It took all of them around 2 months to finally accept me as their owner. They don't even flinch when I walk in the room and they just come out and interact. There was a time when they hid away in their caves and I only ever saw them at food time, but as long as you put them in, don't mess around with your tank i.e changing rocks around or anything, then given a short space of time they will not hide anymore. My big male at the top used to hide until he was 4 - 5 inch.

Yeah I am thinking the smaller one is a male too it is starting to look like how my big male looked at the same size. It is funny because when I bought my big male from the store, he jumped from the net and landed on the floor and I was holding him in my hand, now 18 months later is a beast.

I am feeding them all a mixture of flake, high protein pellets, they abolutely love cat fish pellets and the ones I give them have 50% protein which is perfect. They also eat plec wafers, frozen blood worm from time to time not to often as it can be very messy and also Krill.

I also feed them peas and bits of carrot. They go mad for carrot I never thought it would be possible. Water changes every 3 - 4 weeks believe it or not! The reason I do that is being JD's they used to freak out and stress out if I was doing any maintenence to the tank so I let them relax for that amount of time and then do a 25 percent change. Mine grew so rapidly by just leaving the tank alone and not stressing them and lots of high protein.


----------



## marinerm10 (Feb 2, 2010)

Can anyone sex my Carpintis? Or the smaller Jack?


----------



## Beo (Jan 26, 2008)

Your smaller JD is a male.

If you consider the lower operculum (gill plate) on the photo of your female you will notice blue smudges - a sure sign of a female JD. By comparison, the photos of your adult male and the younger male show no such smudges - the lower operculum is prettty much devoid of colour (a few isolated spots is usual). Thus, you have two males and one female JD!

As for the carpintis - my best guess is a male. There is supposed to be a black blotch in the dorsal fin of a female, though I have never found this an easy way to sex them since their colouration is IME so dependent on mood, dominance, substrate colour, etc. Until recently I had five in a 4' grow out tank in an attempt to get a breeding pair - some days I would see a black blotch, some days I would not. To cut a long story short, despite my best efforts I was left finally with two male carpintis and no fry! :lol:

You have four good looking fish there - enjoy them and thanks for sharing the pictures! :thumb:


----------



## marinerm10 (Feb 2, 2010)

Thanks your your input on that. Yeah I always thought it was a male but posted a pic of him a few months ago when he was smaller and lots of people said it was way to young.

I am hoping he will turn out similar to my dominant male.....Some of the JD's I seem to see are either big dominant alpha males or smaller under developed pale looking males. Any ideas as to why this seems to happen? Are there Jack Dempsey variations, i.e non-thorough-bred variants or pure Jacks? Or is it just dependent on the personality and set up it is in?


----------



## olsonwa07 (Jul 9, 2010)

how did you manage not to go crazy waiting for them to warm up to you? I've had mine...for a week? and it's already driving me nuts. Maybe when I get my tang tank goin I'll have somethin to take my mind off of it and give'em a lil more time, but my mbuna were like ADD fish so they were always doing something, its such a change...


----------



## jeaninel (Nov 1, 2009)

Beautiful fish. I especially like your big male JD (in the first pic). He's gorgeous.


----------



## marinerm10 (Feb 2, 2010)

It annoyed me to for a while but you just need to be patient because once they are settled they become very interactive. Give it 6 weeks from my experience.

The female on my second photo is still quite shy. She has owned her own cave for a long time now. I can hand feed my big male now that is how much he appears to trust me. I could literally put my hand in to touch him and he wouldnt swim away. Just takes time I guess.

Jeaninel thanks. He seriously is one of the best looking JD's around, I have seen a number in shops selling for quite a high price and they don't look half as good. But the supplier that my local store uses have a good reputation for selling good quality Jacks. They always seem to come in at good sizes to begin with, 3- 4 inch and are always displaying their colours perfectly. They had a batch of about 50 come in on a wednesday and by the sunday they had all sold. Very popular cichlid.


----------



## Shellbella35 (Jul 24, 2009)

Beautiful fish! I agree with leaving the tank alone awhile. We have a pair of Jacks about 15 months old that are just about 7 -8" and up until I rearranged their 55 to switch the substrate to sand, they were very social and interactive with us. I could reach my hand in and the female would come out to "play". Our Leopard Sailfin Pleco was also pretty social, but since we disturbed the tank, they've all gone back to the skittish behavior they showed when they were really little. It's gonna take time and a lot of patience to earn their trust again - but def worth it.


----------



## Sprungster (Mar 17, 2008)

Nice pair :thumb:


----------



## marinerm10 (Feb 2, 2010)

Here is a better photo I got of my big male.... 8 and a half inch alpha male


----------

