Male Or Female Rams

[karin]

I have a pair of bolivian rams and they are downright terrible to each other except when they decide that love is in the air ...errhhh water...and they want to spawn then they hang out with each other for awhile before going back to being nasty. My two bother each other with female being the most aggressive. But they never bother any other fish and that includes my corys.

Go figure.

 

[RustedKnight]

I need to see a better pic of the fish on the right.

But I am 99% sure left fish is male.

 

[stevereade]

Yup male and female, can tell by the top fin, the female will eventually get a purple colour to her belly too.

 

[RobGoldsmith]

Do these look young? I was wondering about breeding them some-way down the line after the ale stops biting the female!
Ive read a lot of pages on it, flat stone, warm water, fairly soft Ph seem to be ideal. I think mine must be about 4 or 5 cm long. The male is the largest and always has the fins out, looks stunning! Truely great!

 

[meguro]

Yup male and female, can tell by the top fin

that isnt a particularly reliable way, especially if its the only attribute u use

the female will eventually get a purple colour to her belly too.

that is for blue rams not bolivian rams

 

[RustedKnight]

I was hoping for a better picture of the second fish to look at the shape of the body after the egg tube..

Thats supposed to be fairly reliable.

 

[RobGoldsmith]

I shall try and look again tonight, then add some more pics

 

[RobGoldsmith]

As Requested:

Couple New Pics, the larger one has a lot more colour as you can see here, a very yellow front compared to the more silver smaller shy one.

+ Small alone

Rob

 

[RustedKnight]

Looks like a dominant male and a submissive male in my opinion.

We need some ram experts on this site



^^^^ explains my reasoning ^^^^

 

[elisew]

Bolivians are probably the most difficult to sex, even the experts get confused sometimes

I personally after having had Bolivians myself would hazard a guess at the top ram in the first photo is the male, the bottom one a female.

Info can be found on another website, if you google 'Sexing Bolivian Rams' you should get a link to 'fishlore' website

 

[RobGoldsmith]

Lol, mixed reports everywhere, the smaller one is certainly getting bossed about though! Never hides though! Just swims a few inches back lol
"Experts" - who are they? hehe

 

[RustedKnight]

Bolivians are probably the most difficult to sex, even the experts get confused sometimes

I personally after having had Bolivians myself would hazard a guess at the top ram in the first photo is the male, the bottom one a female.

Info can be found on another website, if you google 'Sexing Bolivian Rams' you should get a link to 'fishlore' website

You mean the one I posted in the post above yours??

Is it possible that they may have sunken bellies, as they've recently come from the lfs?? Cos that would totally throw off the fishlore sexing system that i'm using.

 

[elisew]

Bolivians are probably the most difficult to sex, even the experts get confused sometimes

I personally after having had Bolivians myself would hazard a guess at the top ram in the first photo is the male, the bottom one a female.

Info can be found on another website, if you google 'Sexing Bolivian Rams' you should get a link to 'fishlore' website

You mean the one I posted in the post above yours??

Is it possible that they may have sunken bellies, as they've recently come from the lfs?? Cos that would totally throw off the fishlore sexing system that i'm using.

Erm, yeah, that`ll be the one then!

It`s possible that they could have sunken bellies from being at the lfs I guess, you`ll obviously see a difference when they`ve been with you a while and have been eating regularly.
I would pay more attention to the dorsal and ventrical fins, the ventrical fin especially on the male does tend to be longer, more pointed and closer to the body than it is on the female.

 

[Gvilleguy]

As Elise already knows from seeing my other posts, I have had four somewhat young Bolivian Rams for a couple months now. I think they are between 8 months and 1 year old. Although they have shown no signs of pairing or trying to breed yet, the females have an obvious breeding tube compared to the two males. Based on the pics I've seen here, I suspect you might have two males. You don't have a crystal clear shot of the less colorful one's breeding tube area - but just check it out yourself. Do you see a difference in size (or lack thereof) between the fish's breeding tube areas?

 

[JasperTupp]

Hi Rob

I'm having exactally the same issue as you I think ... http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/343340-bolivian-ram-advice/

I have found the following link which gives pretty good pic's and example ...

Good Luck.

Another Rob