Sexing true blue acara ciclids

[Maryau]

Hi my name is Mary from Australia and I'm new to cichlids. I have two beautiful blue acara cichlids but I have no idea what sex they are.
Could anyone with experience give me their opinion? Thanks in advance.

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Normally males have longer more pointed dorsal and anal fins, and the females have shorter more rounded fins.

I don't recall blue acaras having a yellow edge to the dorsal fin but it's been a while since I saw them. My understanding is the yellow edge on the dorsal fin is from breeding blue acaras with gold edge rivulatus (green terror cichlids). I might be wrong and really need my books to check.

Hopefully our cichlid specialist @Wills can help.

The fish on the right looks a little sunken in around the belly. If it is eating well, the fish might have intestinal worms. Section 3 of the following link has info on treating fish for intestinal worms.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Maryau]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Normally males have longer more pointed dorsal and anal fins, and the females have shorter more rounded fins.

I don't recall blue acaras having a yellow edge to the dorsal fin but it's been a while since I saw them. My understanding is the yellow edge on the dorsal fin is from breeding blue acaras with gold edge rivulatus (green terror cichlids). I might be wrong and really need my books to check.

Hopefully our cichlid specialist @Wills can help.

The fish on the right looks a little sunken in around the belly. If it is eating well, the fish might have intestinal worms. Section 3 of the following link has info on treating fish for intestinal worms.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Maryau]

Thank you for your info. I'll read up about intestinal worms and get some treatment for them.

 

[AmyKieran]

Do you have a more front on photo of the fish?

 

[Maryau]

Do you have a more front on photo of the fish?

Yes I do.

 

[AmyKieran]

Yes I do.

Are you absolutely sure these aren’t green terror?

 

[Maryau]

I bought them from a private seller and she said they were blue acara.
They are very docile and don't bother the other fish.

 

[AmyKieran]

I bought them from a private seller and she said they were blue acara.
They are very docile and don't bother the other fish.

They look more like green terror to me

@Wills what do you think ?

 

[Maryau]

They look more like green terror to me

@Wills what do you think ?

I think they are blue acara because they look more compact and they don't have a lot of orange on their tail fin. But they could be hybrid also

 

[AmyKieran]

I think they are blue acara because they look more compact and they don't have a lot of orange on their tail fin. But they could be hybrid also

Yeah it’s the head shape for me telling me they may not be green terror.
But the orange stripe down the dorsal fin looks very green terror to me

Could be hybrid

 

[Maryau]

Yeah it’s the head shape for me telling me they may not be green terror.
But the orange stripe down the dorsal fin looks very green terror to me

Could be hybrid

I've watched a few videos of blue acara on YouTube and the orange dorsal fin is always orange

 

[Wills]

Hi thanks for all the tags I think these are Green Terrors as Blue Acaras have gold trim to the dorsal fin and GTs have gold trim to the dorsal and caudal fin which yours have. In terms of genders from the first post I think first pic is male and second pic is female. Males have a pointed dorsal and anal fin and females are rounded which we can see here.

I'm probably most concerned about the fish I can see in the background - are those Yellow Labs I can see?

Wills

 

[AmyKieran]

Hi thanks for all the tags I think these are Green Terrors as Blue Acaras have gold trim to the dorsal fin and GTs have gold trim to the dorsal and caudal fin which yours have. In terms of genders from the first post I think first pic is male and second pic is female. Males have a pointed dorsal and anal fin and females are rounded which we can see here.

I'm probably most concerned about the fish I can see in the background - are those Yellow Labs I can see?

Wills

Thanks @Wills

They looked more GT to me but wasn’t entirely sure

 

[Maryau]

Hi thanks for all the tags I think these are Green Terrors as Blue Acaras have gold trim to the dorsal fin and GTs have gold trim to the dorsal and caudal fin which yours have. In terms of genders from the first post I think first pic is male and second pic is female. Males have a pointed dorsal and anal fin and females are rounded which we can see here.

I'm probably most concerned about the fish I can see in the background - are those Yellow Labs I can see?

Wills

Can you tell me why you're concerned about the yellow labs? I have one mature male and 3 young ones. I'll be moving them in their own aquarium next week.