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Since I have gotten my 2 paradise, I thought I had 2 females. They looked just alike. But tonight....one of them started changing color. Its turning darker and showing more color. Its also chasing the other one. They have never fought. They are alone in a ten gallon and have done just fine. I have saw them kinda of swimming with their bodies curved toward one another.

Could I possible have a male and female?? Could they both be just unaggressive fish and thats why theyve never fought? A female betta used to be in with them and she was fine in there too.

What do you think???

You may well have a male and a female - they're hard to tell apart when small, but the darkening colors and the curving around each other are pairing types of behavior.

Make sure you have lots of good hiding places for the less dominant/likely female.

Eric

the males are bolder and often bigger bodied, but on the males, i usually go by the dorsal fin being longer and fuller than on a female.

Ive really looked at these two and I dont see any difference except the male(?) has a red dot on his head. Its just a color "defect" or something natural like that. His(?) color changed so I could tell it all the way across the room. She started hiding from him last night which is something she doesnt usually do. They have always gotten along fine with each other. The chasing was more like playing than her appearing scared. I know you raise the temp to induce spawning. I had to treat this tank last week for ICH and I raised the temp up to about 81 (over a few days) where it had been only about 75 for them. Maybe that did induce some breeding behavior. I know they arent full grown but I dont know how old they are either. They are a good size now.

I usually went by body shape for telling male from female. You can tell earlier that way than waiting for their fins to grow. They were probably just too small to act agressive. Nothing is needed to induce spawning in paradise fish. They were the first fish kept in aquariums for a reason. They are incredibly hardy and will happily multiply until you have several hundred fry even in uncycled tanks. I had somewhere around 300fry growing in one 30g container outside. Unless you have too much water movement for a bubble nest they will spawn easily. The only problem is in a 10g the male will beat up the female once he is gaurding the eggs. Even in 60gallon containers the females would get beat up by some of the males.

The males I've kept have always had more coloring; both dorsal & caudal fins were longer.

Some time ago I had a pair spawn...unfortunately I didn't have a good camera at the time so the quality of these pics isn't the greatest but I'm hoping they'll give you some idea of gender differences.

This first is the male checking out the female while she was acclimating:



They spawning three days later (again sorry about the pics):






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Mine have done the thing in that last pic but they book look like females. I havent saw a bubble nest either. I have what acts like a male but looks liike a female. Maybe they are just to young to tell. I did tell the LFS I wanted a male and female. I just dont know!!

Can you get a picture of them at all?

Ill try......

Pretty sure by the looks of the two now, that I have two males. They were flaring at each other and they both have turned green.

Last edited by ladiejl at 01-Dec-2005 21:37