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Hello! I'm new to the site. I've kept freshwater tropical fish (as well as gold fish) for about four years total now, and have recently come off of a hiatus and set up my 20 gallon long again about a month ago. I currently have 7 White Clouds and 5 Bosemanis with an algae-eater (and way too many snails from the tank's previous incarnation when I bought some plants from an LFS that told me they didn't have any snails in their plant tanks but did).

Everyone seems to be doing quite well in the tank, there isn't any heavy-duty aggression with any of the fish (aside from the occasional "hey there, you" kind of nudge), and no competing for food or anything. By and large they seem to be doing well together. The WCMMs stick around the top of the tank and tend to hang out in the duckweed, and the Bosemanis stay in the middle, a little toward the bottom. Of course I'm a little concerned that the tank may be overstocked at this point, but I'm filtering the tank with a 40-gallon capacity filter, and it's planted as well, with pearl weed, grass, java moss, java ferns, two banana plants, and some duckweed at the top. The substrate is natural sand, river rocks, and gravel. The temp seems to be holding at about 75 degrees with no need to use the tank heater.

Anyway, I have two questions about the Bosemanis, which are totally new to me. First of all, I've read that the females really have no coloration at all, then I looked up the pics here at the site of some getting ready to mate, and I see that the two depicted both show the purplish/orange coloration said to be typical of the males. So, which is it? Do the females have little-to-no coloration, or is the main means of sexing them body shape, really? Because, if coloration is the thing, then I have an all boy's school going on here, and consequently I'm concerned about aggression in the tank.

The second question is -- do they eventually come to be dark purple and orange, or do they change coloration in response to stimuli? The ones I have were all pale blue and light yellow when I got them at the store, but when I put them in the tank they all turned those lovely deep colors, then faded back to the lighter shades, and have continued to do this on-and-off. Is this because they're probably juveniles still, or is it typical behavior for them to flit back and forth from dark to light like that?

Anyway, thanks and hello and this is a great site with a lot of resources!

Hi and welcome to the site
Check out this link from this site.
Hope that will help you out.
http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/327.htm

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I know human beings and fish can co-exist peacefully.

Thanks, Rob & hello!

Yes, I did look up the profile here. It doesn't really say whether they change color or not, and says that the females are typical of other Rainbows, so that's why I was curious about those two aspects of their appearance.

I just hope I'm not setting myself up for a possible problem in the tank if they're all males, mainly.

As the Boes gets to adult their colors get more darker.
Females generally have a shallower keel to their bodies.

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I know human beings and fish can co-exist peacefully.