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So i had three blue acaras who i have come to think now are all females. So i picked up two this last weekend that are both males. The two new ones look way differen't then the original three. So far it looks like the two biggest ones of the bunch may be pairing off. Which is what i was hoping for. The thing that worries me is that they look so much differn't. Im not sure they are the same type of acaras if they are both kinds of araras. In the pictures you can see how the male has a bump on his head and the female doesn't. The pair I had before years ago both looked more like the female. The pictures aren't the greatest but you can deffenetly see the differences in them. Tell me what you guys think.

Female Acara:
http://s609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/gourami_2009/?action=view&current=IMG00051.jpg

Male acara:
http://s609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/gourami_2009/?action=view&current=IMG00052.jpg

Female acara with younger female in back ground:
http://s609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/gourami_2009/?action=view&current=IMG00053.jpg

Both male and female:
http://s609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/gourami_2009/?action=view&current=IMG00054.jpg

Male acara:
http://s609.photobucket.com/albums/tt173/gourami_2009/?action=view&current=IMG00055.jpg

They definitely all look like blue acaras to me. I have found that as they mature the females tend to have the black and white banding while the males become larger with more blue shimmer, a pointier elongated dorsal fin and an orange colour along the top of the dorsal.

Just out of interest how large is your tank? If you have one or more pairs hooking up and mating then you may be in for some serious turf wars, especially if the tank is not big enough for each pair to establish a fairly large territory.

Good luck

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Thanks for the advice, i'm not planning on keeping them all in the same tank together. I'm just trying to get a pair out of the five and then the pair will get the tank to them selves.

Can i just say it's great to see people giving out correct advice and people keeping cichlids the right way and pairing stuff off correctly.
Hope you have good success with them.
Mez/:'

My hopes were to get a pair with the first three and that didn't pan out well with them all being females. The bigger ones hates the two smaller ones. But I've kept them in the past and they did really good. They are hard to find around here for some reason. I have the only five I could find between the 6 differen't fish stores I went to. One of them an hour drive away. That one carries everything and even they only had two.

Good to hear that you have a longer term plan to keep these guys properly accomodated. Best of luck with finding a match from your group.

As a side note it seems strange to me that acaras are hard to find. IME acaras are one of the easier cichlids to breed and the LFS in my area get innundated with acaras (both adult and juvie) that need rehoming when people realise just how rabbit-like they can be. I for one have given up on 'rescuing' and raising acara fry from my display tank; I'd never have the space just to grow them out let alone keep and raise them all in proper accomodations.

Have fun.

G_T

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.