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I wanted two boys and two girls, and I got the two most masculine looking fish in the tank and all the rest looked like girls... So 'any other two'...

I'm pretty sure I ended up with 4 boys. Here some pics for you to comfirm.

Here's the two that I am REALLY sure are boys:
http://img310.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ram22lh.jpg
The third pretty sure boy is the one in the background. He pretty much looks like those two.

Here's the one that is most femine...
http://img161.imageshack.us/img161/3937/girlrammaybe0di.jpg

Females have a pinkish belly and a shorter and less pointy dorsal fin that the males. But the obvious difference is the colour of the belly.

Eg.

Female
http://www.fishforums.net/uploads/post-22-1076103033.jpg

Male
http://quiksilverguy62ri.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/.pond/ram2.jpg.w300h249.jpg

Milkyboy

Your male link didn't work.

I've never seen a female like that! There's hope yet!

My rams are about 2-3cm long. I can't distinguish any reddish tint, but could their age play a role?

It can be a little tricky to tell rams apart, especially when they're young. I've found that females don't necessarily have the pink bellies, and that males can show this trait. Colors won't be accurate all of the time for figuring out the genders of your fish. Even checking at the dorsal fin, on which males traditionally have a "spike" on the first few rays, doesn't always work. Really, the best way to identify sex is to vent the cichlids. The genital tubes (located between the anus and the anal fin) of each sex will stick out a little from the body and are noticeable when the fish are not moving. Males have a narrow, pointed vent, and females have a tube which is a little thicker and appears to have a cratered tip.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

I was going to ask the same question. We just got a nice shipment of blue rams in a work and I want to bring some home. I just wasn't 100% sure I could get a male and a female. These fish are so pretty!

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Thanks for your replies!

sirbooks - I don't suppose you have pics that demonstrate this?
I guess a good bet is to look at them all and, if they all look the same, they're all probably the same?

I had the same issues, although I am aware of the obvious sexing signs. As sirbooks points out, sexing in juveniles is harder to almost impossible, in particular if most colorations are washed out because the fish are stressed in the LFS (and from the transport).

I went to the LFS for weeks (maybe even months, I don't remember) and observed the Ram tank very closely, never being able to make a 100% distinction between male and female Rams. Until one day when I finally found not only a bright colored male (alpha guy material) and a young nicely colored female with pink belly, but also could clearly identify that they are a couple. The male chased all others from the "good" spot in the tank and only tolerated her in his territory. I bought them on the spot ( $20 each ).

Unfortunately, one downside of Rams is their sensitivity to water quality, and although I take good care of my tanks and placed them in a well established one, a week later both died . I am not even sure if it was the water or if they had an internal parasite as I could not observe their last two days of life (I was away).

Anyway, I just thought I share this story,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

This picture should work...



It's easy to tell these two apart. The female does have a pink belly and the male has the long "spike" at the beginning of his dorsal fin. You may also be able to notice the genital vents, and see how they are different.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Rams in good condition are easy to tell apart. Rams in poor condition will have little color and even the vents don't seem as obvious. Everytime I buy rams like these they die. On healthy females I've always seen a pink belly and a very very obvious vent. Most rams I bought that I thought were maybe female due to lack of spike and lighter belly color always turned out to be faded males which died. It's only the ones I've bought that are obviously female that have survived. After buying about 5 different rams to try to get a female I'd say hold out until you find one in good health that perfectly matches a females description. Unless of course you have a bunch of cash you can waste buying lots of rams.

At the store, the tank was pretty much bare. There were two males at either end of the tank, and the rest had washed out colours. I assumed the washed out colours were girls.

I initially thought that the colours were because territories couldn't be established, due to the lack of scenery - and the washed outs were just trying to play girls to avoid being picked on.

However, in my tank (5ft with lots of plants and wood), they seem to actually swim together. And they've all developed very bright colours, despite swimming with one another.

So I'm concluding that they like me more than the store.

At one store, I was talking to the owner. He said that in a shipment of 30 blue rams, 1 of them was female. So I think it's a good plan to just try to find one with a pink belly in the store.

So frustrating!