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Can anyone help me sex these two l129? I already have a male and I wanted one of these to be a female but I'm losing hope.

Pleco 1
Pleco 2

Hi sabrinah,

I'm inclined to say the first fish is male, and the second might be too... Difficult to tell. How do the pectoral spine odontodes on these two fish compare to the same on your other male?

Best,
Eric

They're a little hard to compare because he's over twice their size. I think his look a bit longer?

If they are half his size and they already have pectoral fin odontodes, then they may both be males. But at that smaller size, it's difficult to be sure (for me anyway).

Perhaps someone else will offer an opinion.

Best of luck
Eric

Thank you! I feared they were looking male. I think I'm cursed!

Hi,

both are males, good luck finding a female soon.

I bought 4 more! I specifically requested females and I'm feeling pretty optimistic about this bunch.

Just here to say good luck! I actually had a nightmare today about all my plecos turning out to be males, hope it's not an omen

Hi Sabrinah,

How do these new fish compare in size to the others you have? I'm looking at the photos, and I don't see much odontode development on the pectoral spines (I see a little, but not a lot). If these fish are at least as big as your smaller male, then I think you have some females here, although I can't rule out immature males.

Good luck,
Eric

They're a bit bigger than my others! Their quarantine tank is pretty densely planted with a lot of hides so I rarely see them but they don't seem as attached to caves as my males do.

Fingers crossed for at least 2 females!

Well things went downhill very quickly. Everything was going great in quarantine with the new 4, then I fed Hikari freeze dried bloodworms for the first time. I don't trust frozen food in my area so I figured I would give freeze dried a shot. The next day they all suddenly had ich. Then all but one quickly died despite treatment. The one that's left isn't looking too hot honestly. Maybe this is the fish gods telling me to stop trying to get females since it never, ever seems to work out.

Wow that's an awful story. Sorry sabrinah.

That said, I don't think the freeze-dried food introduced ich to your tank. However, if the fish didn't eat the food and it decayed in the tank, that could hace created a stressor that weakened the fish and allowed existing ich in the tank to proliferate and infect them.

Regards,
Eric

I didn't see any leftovers in the morning so I was pretty sure they ate it. I also checked my water parameters every morning and night and nothing ever spiked, not even when 3 of them died. Granted all of my tanks are planted but I would have expected some kind of spike from that.

I kind of feel like saying screw it and tossing the remaining fish (hopefully a female) in with my oldest male tonight and crossing my fingers.