My Pristella's are finally maturing...

[Magnum Man]

it's taken almost 2 years, as tiny as they were when they came, but I'm noticing a few red tails... are those males, or will they all eventually get red tails???

 

[GaryE]

Red tails all around. I sex them by body shape.

I am quite shocked by the Pristellas I bred. I'd have to check to be exact, but they should be around 3 months of age now, and they are 3/4 the size of their parents, and already red tailed. They are larger than the ones in the lfs.

I added 20 to the group of 5 I had in my 120, and they make a great shoal. The male older ones are already hard to spot, but the large females (2) are way bigger than their daughters.

I think there's only one main reason why they are so large compared to your slower growers. They have had a diet of live artemia nauplii, hatched daily. They've gotten that six days a week, with occasional fine dried krill, grindal worms and the zucchini I feed the catfish that were in with them. Now that they are basic young adults, starting two weeks ago they get flake as a staple, with artemia once or twice a week. They're in the general population of my 120 gallon tetra tank.