Opinions on L134 gender

[Aura]

By the looks of these two, I'm guessing they are both females, but wanted some expert opinions. I want to be sure they aren't bloated and in need of some treatment -- they look like they are about to pop. Their poop has been normal looking, so I don't think that's the case. I added some new caves to their tank a few days ago and when they came out of their hiding spots, I was quite surprised to see how plump they were!









A couple of pictures from back in October. Much slimmer!





I've been feeding them NLS pellets, veggie sticks, and recently added earthworm sticks to their diet. I try to feed sparingly, but could it still be too much?

[MatsP]

I don't know how many different fish there are in the group. It would help if you could give them some identification so that we can say "Fish 1 is a female, fish 3 is a male" or some such. I think there are at least three different fish in the pictures...

The first two pictures I'd say definitely shows female fish. Whether you have any males, I'm not sure. But I would think if you do, that you'll have babies pretty soon.


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Mats

[MarcW]

From the second picture I would say the one attached to the glass above the other is a female for sure. The other I'm not too sure about.

They do certainly look big, hopefully it's because they are gravid. I recently got a group of four 134's which have made a similar transformation to yours, I just noticed today that two of them have got very large, not far off the roundness of yours. So I will be keeping an eye on responses too!

I have been feeding mine frozen food around midday (brineshrimp and occassionally bloodworm) then an algae wafer and worm tablet (one of each split in half leaving one piece for each fish) at night. Your feeding seems fine to me, but I haven't had mine for long, I was thinking of just doing one feed per day but as I'm trying to get them to breed I'm not sure if more or less food would be best.

[Aura]

Oh sorry, MatsP, I guess I wasn't clear that it's just the two of them. I can barely tell them apart myself, but the top fish in the first two pictures is fish #1. Pictures three and four are fish #2 (I think), this one comes out in the open every once in a while. The last two older pictures I don't know -- it was right after I got them and I posted those to show how much fatter they have become.

Good luck with yours MarcW. I was hoping that I'd have one of each sex, but it looks like I need to locate a male now.

Also, I've only been feeding them once a day, in the evening. I rarely see them out of their caves during the day and when I've put food in, they don't touch it.

[MatsP]

In that case, I think you'd better go hunting for a boy...

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Mats

[Aura]

Thank you for your help.

[MarcW]

From the sounds of it they are ready to spawn if they are not coming out of caves and that chubby! Mine still rush to the front of the tank whenever food is about so it'll be a while yet before any spawning happens I think!

Good luck searching for a male.