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hey guys,i was always under the impression that with the blue acaras,the male has a white line throo his dorsal fin,and the female gets the orange line throo her dorsal fin,well up untill a few days ago,i thought i was correct,i even have a pair in my 89 gal,the male has the white line and the female has the orange,and ive seen her laying so im 100% sure shes the female and he(with the white)is the male.now heres where im confused,the pair that i spoke of above have some sisters left in the 55gal,atleast i thought they were all females,becasue 2 females have hooked up and spawned,and the fry hatched this morning,when i seen the 2 females displaying pair behavour,i just thought that maybe they were fond of each other or something,then 1 of them layed eggs,and they are exactly the same in apperance,both of them have the orange stripe throo the dorsal,now in this tank there is only 1 male fish,my large gt,and he has a partner,and plus the 2 ba,have shoed all the other fish to the other end,so im 100% sure that its there batch,now the question,how the hell did they do this both being femaleshas there been a colour morf or something,ive seen females lay eggs plenty of times with no parnter,ive seen 2 fish of oppisite sexs,have babies,ive seen them cross breed,but i never seen nothing like this,normally when a female decides to spawn on her own,another female cant get near the spawn site,i have a large female ba in there with the 2 ba i just told yous about and she has the orange srtipe,,this is really confusing for me,because they both look identical,1 is just watching over the fry,while the other 1 is gaurding the perimeter,ill probly hang onto this pair,so far they seem good parents,but they have really confused there grandaddy,can anyone shed some light on this,if the batch didnt hatch i wasnt even guna bother posting about this,but as the batch hatched,this is why im confused,i would have bet money,and argued with some1 untill i was blue in the face that they were females,but im not so sure now...

Well, either one is a male or you have some hybrids. Most likely one is a male. There are a couple species of fish where a female can reproduce without a mate. I'm pretty sure they're all livebearers. Blue acaras can't. The female's eggs have to be fertilised to hatch. So apparently you have a male with female markings. Could have something to do with hormones and that the fish in the tank are mostly female, I guess.

Small chance that the gt was involved - so raise the fry to see if they're for sure blue acaras and not hybrids.

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mmmmmi was thinking the gt,but,the 2 fish that im talking about,he hates them,infact he hates everything in there except hes beloved partner,a large ba!plus,the 2 fish have shooed all the other fish away from the spawn site,i dont think the gt could get near the eggs.

Well, if he was spawning in some other part of the tank, it'd be possible for some of the milt to get to the ba eggs and fertilise them. Like I said, not likely, but possible.

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Dont think the white line is indicative, any of the blue acaras I have ,all sexes, can have a white line, a red line or no line, and it changes periodically.

its just really confusing,cause all the ba ive had,the females had the orange,and the males has the white..even the very first pair i got years ago,the guy in the shop,also said the same thing about the colour in the dorsal fin,but it must be like u said lh,cause they are the same,and they are still looking after the fry,i hope a few come throo,these will be real nice,both mum and dad althought the same,are very nice and glowing with colour..and talk about nasty,whooo hooo,small but tuff..