Help Me Sex My Rams!

[RamboFish]

Got 2 new Rams, but unsure of their sex? Any Ideas?
The Larger one is the most colourful and seems to chase the smaller one quite alot. Also flares up/ displays its fins at the other and swims backwards into it?? the smaller one also does this back sometimes? unsure if they are a male and female or 2 males?

 

[fluttermoth]

I can't be 100% certain from those pics, but they look like two females to my eye.

 

[MegaZerino]

the bottom one seems to have a pink belly, so i think its a female

 

[KittyKat]

I am 100% sure that the left one in the first photo is a female and the one on the right is the male.

In the second photo, male is left, female is right and last photo is of the male.

 

[RamboFish]

Thanks everyone, keep it coming
You all seem to agree with my intial reaction which was the larger one being the male, and the smaller one with the pink belly being the female. Just find it tricky sometimes and behviour wise it was vary so much. My old gbr pair in my sig the male was the smaller less colourful one. Although he was the one who would chase her, so i guess thats an indicator.

 

[KittyKat]

In my experience, if a pair gets to chose each other, there is no chasing going on and they work well together. In this case, for me, the indicators are the body shape and the pink belly on the female.

 

[RamboFish]

In my experience, if a pair gets to chose each other, there is no chasing going on and they work well together. In this case, for me, the indicators are the body shape and the pink belly on the female.

I have had some problems with my tank, but once they are settled down, do you think it's worth adding perhaps 2 more golden rams, so they can pair up themselves then taking to ones that have not paired up back to my lfs?

 

[KittyKat]

I have had some problems with my tank, but once they are settled down, do you think it's worth adding perhaps 2 more golden rams, so they can pair up themselves then taking to ones that have not paired up back to my lfs?

Not in a tank that size, and once they settle down, it would be too late anyway: it's likely that the two you have would already pair up by that point and any new rams would be "invading" their territory so you'd get chaos from the existing two trying to harass the new two.

When I kept rams in a 5 ft tank, the territories were around 45*45-60*60 cm in size, depending on how dominant individual pairs were.

 

[Jay-93]

The large one is the Male and the little one is the female. They're identical to the Gold ram pair I bought from my LFS

 

[Gilli]

Its early days yet - give them time! My kribs took 2 weeks to pair up before the male decided to stop chasing the female off and that she was good enough for him!

 

[RamboFish]

Thanks guys. They had previously been in a large tank with another pair if rams, maybe that stopped them pairing up. They've been on their own together for about 2 weeks now I think.

 

[KittyKat]

Thanks guys. They had previously been in a large tank with another pair if rams, maybe that stopped them pairing up. They've been on their own together for about 2 weeks now I think.

Nah, that wouldn't stop them pairing up; in fact, if the other two bred, that would have encouraged these two to pair up because of the hormones that the other two would release into the water… if these two have been in the same tank with few other rams for a while now (so say, for 2+ months with only another two rams), then it is unlikely that they will ever pair up.