Sexing Large L-128's

[unklebilly]

Sorry guys I posted this in the wrong section before so maybe I'll have better luck here. These look like two females to me but I'd read reports of ondontodes not forming until after several months of conditioning for breeding. Is there a good chance one of these could be a male? I'm no expert but the largest one seems a bit big for a female.

[Jobro]

Sorry, I guess you will have to take some more pictures.

How long have they been in your care? are they eating well?

Lack of odonthodes is usually not a good measure to go by. All it says is that it is not a male in breeding condition.

[unklebilly]

Gotcha, I just acquired these less than a week ago. I have the feeling they were wild caught not long ago and will need some time to settle in. They are eating but not much. Not interested in plecocaine, carrots, shrimp or romaine but they will enjoy zucchini.
I noticed the ondontodes look like they may have been nibbled off by another fish but I can't say for sure.

[Jobro]

Odonthodes just fall off or break during transport/import, it happens a lot. No need to worry. They grow back.

priority should be getting them to eat proper, for now. Maybe you should refrain from taking them out for more pictures for the next weeks. Better healthy and unidentified than vice versa

zucchini is better than nothing, but it won't sustain them in the long term. frozen foods are usually always taken after some tries. Try frozen brine shrimp as it sinks and stays on the ground where they can find it easily. Best to keep an eye on what they poop to get an idea of what they eat. raw sweet potatoe might be worth a try as well. give them 48h to check it out. It won't rot as fast as some other veggies do. Hope they will do fine.

[unklebilly]

Thanks! I really don't enjoy the picture process but I wasn't getting good fotos in the water. Great info! Makes me think I could possibly have a male in the bunch.

[MarcW]

I would agree with the comments above.

They will need to be conditioned for a few months before any obvious differences appear.

I currently have 4 of a similar size to yours, 3 males and one female. It took a few months for the dominant male to grow odonthodes, he then became an obvious male, there are two other males with smaller odonthodes. The female only became obvious when she was gravid, she did have a bit of stubble on the pectoral fins and sides of the head, it looks like there could have been odonthodes but they have fallen off, if that makes sense. Once carrying eggs a female will be noticeably fatter, and the genital papilla tends to protrude a couple of millimetres.

To get mine into breeding condition, I gave the 4 of them a choice of 5 caves with lots of slate to hide in as well. Fed courgette, a whole one split in two along the length, held down with screwcumbers every night which they completely stripped the skin from, I made sure to remove this first thing in the morning as it goes mushy quite quickly and can cause a mess if left in for too long. I left it in for about 12 hours a time. In addition to the courgette I fed Repashy Soilent green mixed 50:50 with Bottom Scratcher, and have recently started on the Fruut Luups mix too. They also seem to enjoy Tetra Prima & Pleco Tablets, Vitalis Plec Pellets, and JBL Novo Tabs occasionally.

As Jobro mentioned raw sweet potato is good and you can leave it in for a couple days, it took mine a while to see this as food, but they will now eat it, although their favourite is still courgette.

These are hard to sex if not well conditioned, I have had 6-7 of these in the past all breeding size, I tried to pick as many females as possible and I have only ever found one!

[unklebilly]

Thank you that's fascinating that you rarely find females and here I am thinking I have nothing but. Yet another helpful detail leading me to believe I may indeed have a male in the bunch. It seems feeding is my main priority. I will continue to offer them as great a variety as possible.

That's awesome the guy above who has the spawn!

[MarcW]

Good luck with them, look after them well and it shouldn't be too long before at least a better guess can be made on the sex.

If you look at the first post in this thread, http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 11#p298011 you will see pictures of three of mine before they were in good condition, I couldn't tell you which was the female!

[unklebilly]

Hey that's great thanks Marc. I agree they all have the same head shape in those pics and there is no apparent differences to distinguish male from female. I'm heavily considering the repashy. I've never seen or used it before. Soilent Green reviews on amazon had a lot of people saying their fish would not eat it so I was hesitant. Of course you are more likely to read reviews that are complaints rather than the success stories due to the nature of consumers. I'll give the soilent green a go unless you have since had greater success with another variety.

[MarcW]

They seem to like the 'DR. TANNER’S Fruut-Luups' variety of Repahsy best, I see you are in the USA so you should be able to get that, if not locally, through mail order. I ordered mine from Swiss Tropicals and had it shipped to a hotel last time I was in the USA.

As with a lot of foods I have fed my L128, they seem to be slow to accept things as food, and it takes a few attempts for them to see new things as food. If they don't like the Repashy, it is also a great food for other catfish, my Corys love all four varieties of it that I have.