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My eyes are bugging out trying to sex these guys. Hoping for some help with a fresh perspective. The first pic shows fish 3/4-1 1/4". the second and third show fish 1 3/4" and up. Water is a little tinted from tannins.







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thanks in advance

These are too small to sex. They need to be upwards of 2.25 inches, more like 2.5.

I could guess nr 13 as a female and nr 16 as a male. Part from that.. like fishboy said, give them a few months to grow and it will be easier to tell

usually you can tell by their behaviour. The ones occupying and defending a cave would be males, the ones wandering about more, or finding a hiding spot not suitable for spawning would be females.

Is it just me or does numbers 4 & 5 look like snub noses.

Jo wrote:Is it just me or does numbers 4 & 5 look like snub noses.

yes you're right. They do look like snubnoses... especially nr 5

Thanks all. From a bottom view it looks like I might have one snub. Luckily that doesn't affect breeding.

Heliophobe wrote:Luckily that doesn't affect breeding.

how do you know that? As far as I know nobody has come up with a definate answer to what the cause is?

I guess I don't. Just been doing some research and talking to a breeder. Didn't mean to start a debate or be inaccurate.

Debate is always good That's the only way we can learn. There's at least three theories about the cause if snubnoses.

Did you read this thread?

http://www.zebrapleco.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=293&h

yup, that and others. I personally don't care if it's a snub. Still love the fish.

hehe, meet you back here in a couple years then. i'll do the same!

Ok.. now for my pennies worth

11- male
13 - female
16 - male

On the subject of snub noses, the jury is still out on this one with myself.

On the side of caution I would suggest that unless an individual was willing to treat breeding snub-noses as an experiment, and prepare themselves for a possible "good" or "Bad" result it woudl be best to stear clear. I only air these views on the side of caution due to the lack of info available at present.

As barbie said it could be nothing to do with genetics, but until we know, and with the prospect of a very limited gene pool in the future, is it , at this point in time, worht the risk.

It seeems to me that no matter what species you want to breed, wether it be dog, cat, horse or fish, you always pick the best looking, most beautiful; the individual with the most typical traits for the particular species to include in your breeding program.

Ask a breeder of fine Discus if he would include an underdeveloped Discus in his breeding program (which would be an enviromental damage). I'm guessing the answer would be no, as he would want the best looking, strongest and healthiest speciments in his breeding program.

You don't breed the runt of the litter, and you don't breed the speciment with deformities, no matter what the cause is, especially if you don't know the cause of the deformity.

Ask Betta breeders if they would breed anything less than an as close to perfect speciement as possible.

To me it it's not an option to breed any fish that is deformed. I'm sorry and concerned to see that it seems to be considered ok to include a deformed fish in a breeding program. We do not know what is causing the deformity, but then again - does it matter what is causing it? Isn't it an obious choise to go for the most typical and beautiful individuals, and breed them rather than the deformed ones?

Yes, it's ok to breed a horse that had it's leg broken but was a particularily beautiful speciment before thie accident (and the owner spendt time and effort to save the horse because this happend), because then you know it wasn't born limp, or with a broken bone. What if it was born limp? would you breed it?

I'm sorry about the long posting, I just don't feel it's right to breed the fish "as long as it's got stripes". We do not know what is causing the deformity, but the fact remains that it *is* a deformed fish. Therefor it shouldn't be included in a breeding program, IMO.

I can see the need for trying to breed two snubnoses to try and find out what the cause is, but I think it should be done under controlled conditions, by an experienced breeder. In my opinion it's far to early to say "it's ok, it doesn't affect breeding, so everybody go for it"

We *do not know* what is causing it, so I get the feeling we're playing with fire when not taking this issue seriously.

It's hard to not agree with you McEve on that one...