My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

We all know how difficult it is to identify the sex of these fish, so please post a picture in here and we'll try to help you (or at least give an educated guess!).
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wavebear
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My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

Post by wavebear »

Here are pics of my 5 zebra plecos~!

I bought and chose them all as female but not ensure...
What do you think!?
Many thanks in advance~!
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John
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Re: My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

Post by John »

First of all welcome to the site, a introduction in the "introduce yourself" section is allways appreciated :wink:

My first impression of the fish is:

1: possible female, needs more growing and conditioning to sex for shure
2: male
3: male
4: possible female, needs more growing and conditioning to sex for shure
5: possible female, needs more growing and conditioning to sex for shure
Greetings,
John
[img]http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x276/hypancistrus-zebra/half.gif[/img]
Stevie.K
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Re: My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

Post by Stevie.K »

Not an easy one as I agree with John they need conditioning & it may be eaier to tell in a few months.
All fairly pinched @ the gills, but I would guess you have more females than males. :wink:
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Rob
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Re: My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

Post by Rob »

1,4,5 females.
2,3 skinny males.

Spend the next 6-8 weeks fattening them up with a nice little diet and drop us a few more photos for a more "confidence appraisal" :-)

Rob
The perfect white lie..."Of course I didn't pay that much for the fish honey"
psionic001
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Re: My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

Post by psionic001 »

Hi Rob & Stevie,

can I ask what you are looking for in these fish to sex them? I couldn't find a solid thread on this.

I'm new to Zebs and it sounds like you guys are quite confident.

I'll post a new thread to discuss this, but these 4 seem to be a good example.


thanks

Matt
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Rob
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Re: My 5 plecos, are they all girls ??

Post by Rob »

Hi Matt

The following link is a good start. http://www.zebrapleco.com/core/hypancis ... s_info.php

As a general rule it is usually quite difficult to sex the fish until they are at least 2.5 - 3 years old. Hence the difficulty in buying captive bred fish. In most cases people tend to sell the young before they reach this age, so gettign hold of a mature group is very difficult unless they are already established.

In general however I look at the following:

Mature fish:
1. Males have more pronounced odontodes (hairs) on the front gill plates.
2. Males have more hairs on the ends of the pectorial fins.
3. Males have a more triangular shaped body i.e. if you were to draw a line fron the gill plates along the side of the body the would intersect at the tail, it would form a triangle. However if you were to do this for the female the lines would not meet at the tail as the body is more rounded.
4. The Gill plates tend to protrude making the shape of the males head more spade like.

In Younger fish, the odontodes and gill plates have not matured, hence it is difficult to use these to differentiate between the sexes, so I look for the following.
1. Body shape as above, this works only with well fed fish. i.e. the female is often more rounded.
2. The females heads can look almost pinched at the tip.
3. the Pectorial fins can be slightly finer and tend to me more rounded. i.e. in an arc. (although to be honest I have never been able to verify this one).

From a behaviour point of view, the most obvious sign is that the males take up a cave. However this can be misleading if the tank does not have enough furniture for the fish.

The easiest form of sexing is however the following:

The one that lays the eggs is the lady! :-)

If I get a chane over the next week or so I will make up a little sticky with some illustrations and photos that I will put onto the forum.

If anyone wants to contribute with pictures etc they are most welcome.

Rob
The perfect white lie..."Of course I didn't pay that much for the fish honey"
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