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Just a long shot.... but can anyone have a look at my pics and see if they can identify the gender of these 4 Zebra plecs, the photo is not great but maybe someone with more experience can hazard some guesses! I got them today and am hoping to breed them when they are mature enough (I have one more zebra plec too). One in particular is larger than the rest, and I think it may be female from all the articles I have read on sexing them. (tricky when you have some infront of you tho!) Anyway, any help would be massively appreciated!!



http://community.webshots.com/photo/119 ... 8878ULkKIr

http://community.webshots.com/photo/119 ... 8719VIdbXD

Thanks!

Hi!

Sexing fish just bought are usually very tricky...
You shall let them settle in for a few months and then try to take a portrait of each individual
By the way what the size of them
Cheers
Yann

Hi Yann,
Thanks for the advice, the plecos are from 1.5" to 2" in size- still got some growing to do!

Hi!

Yeap still a bit early to sex these, especially the 1.5'' ones...
Cheers
Yann

IMO you definately have a pair, but best wait and see! Where did you get them from and how much where they?
Cheers

Hippyguy- I work for an aquatic retailer so I got them from direct from an importer, they were £55 each. (ouch!) I bought these ones cause they were described as size M/L and 'nice'! I also have a male Zebra thats about 2.5" already in my community aquarium. Lets hope there is a pair in there somewhere! I have a 42"x15"12" tank just for them with good filtration, sand and loads of caves, tunnels and tubes so hopefully they will settle in well!

Thanks for the replies

I also am trying to identify the gender of my Zebras. I have 5, about 3" long, so they should be large enough to identify. I've read about the more pronounced odontodes on the males, and a more curved pectoral fin in the females, plus a heaver body in the female, but these would all depend on the age and dominance of the fish wouldn't they?

I was wondering if I could draw any conclusions from the behaviour of the fish. Two of my Zebras has taken posession of a cave each, while it seems to be more unpredictable where the other three choose to be. Can I draw a conslusion from this?

I've heard that the females have a broken line closest to the pectoral fin, whereas the male would not. Is there any substance in this claim?

I can provide pictures of the fish, from most angles except from above if anybody would like to see if they can help me identify the gender of my Zebras.

Thank you in advance.

Hi NotNoisy,
I was shown a link to a site which has some very useful pics to help with sexing Zebras, have a look and see if you find anything of help....

http://home.owari.ne.jp/%7Econes/lancef ... ebra4.html

Mine seem too small and new to tell!

It has been my experience that the first sexual characteristic to appear is the body shape followed by pectoral fin development. Look at the uppermost pair of photos from the Japanese link.

http://home.owari.ne.jp/%7Econes/lancef ... ebra4.html

Note that the female, on the right, looks "pinched" behind the pectoral fins, and then bulges out. The male contour along the same line is almost straight. As they grow, the spines will appear on the male pectorals along with cheek odontodes. Again, the photos mentioned above are excellent average examples.

Its tough to tell in your photo, but the fish at 3:00, judging on body shape, appears to be female. But then, I am used to looking for females, as we segregate ours as soon as possible. This is also much easier to do in 3-d, due to the stripes. (I also set fish against a light blue background which minimizes the effects of the stripes)

As they grow, you can also monitor behavior. Once settled in, males will spend practically the entire day closeted in their caves, while the females tend to cruise around a bit more. If there are empty caves about, we keep one per fish in the tank, I will usually find females perched among the stones.

If you are contemplating breeding these guys, I can only say, "Be Patient!" These are slow maturing fish. But, if you leave them alone in CONSTANTLY good conditions, they breed readily. There is a load of information on this site concerning their husbandry, just search around and you will find everything that you need.

Good Luck

...in reply to notNoisy:

I can't tell you how many times I have heard this one about broken stripes. I have seen many variations on the striping and none are consistent with sex. View the web reference I mentioned in an earlier post. These are very good examples.

(BTW: Does anyone here know who should get the credit for these shots? I send people there all of the time and really should give credit where credit is due!)

Hi , just to add on what pleco farmer has said,in my experience i have found that females lack any or very small check bristles and this is what gives them this pinched apperance in the head.Males when mature ,have these bristles.Males also seem to have a slender body,when view from above.

Could pleco farmer add on to why his females are segregated,when they first sex them ? Does he only keep one male per tank ? Does he find F1/2 fish easier to spawn than the wild fish? sorry about the questions. Thanks Alsbeth

pl*co_farmer wrote:(BTW: Does anyone here know who should get the credit for these shots? I send people there all of the time and really should give credit where credit is due!)

In addition I'd like to speak to them about adding teh pictures to planet catfish as it would help a lot of people find this pictures and the information they display much more readily.

Jools

In the DC metro area, it has been my experience that 80% of the zebras we find in shops are males. Kind of pointless to speculate on why, it is just that way. So, to keep things cooking, we keep the suspected females in a separate rearing tank. You can usually find males when you need them.

When we were doing this in large tanks (75USGal), it appeared that the presence of a spawn discouraged other breeding. This is anecdotal, but it was also easier to configure the smaller tanks within our space, so we abandoned the 75's for other reasons as well. We get much better results using smaller tanks (37USGal) with two females and three males. Furthermore, I believe the key to success with L-046 is to mess around with their environment as little as possible. We will cycle dry/rainy with stubborn groups to get them going, but once the initial spawn occurs, we rarely have to trigger. In bigger tanks, with bigger groups, you get more fish just laying around consuming quality bloodworm.

If a breeding group is non-productive after several cycles, we replace the females. As with other "more-evolved" creatures, the males don't seem to be very picky when it comes to reproduction, or at least the act involved. So, the females become the more critical sex to manage.

We started with wild-caught specimens, going through quite a few initially, to arrive at several breeding groups. Since then we have fed back the first generation of tank raised. Our goal is not selective breeding for characteristics, (does anyone else shiver at the prospect of a longfin zebra?) so we were only concerned about the avoidance of in-breeding. Mixing these with wild-caught and other tank-raised seems to make little difference, but we are only at an advanced prototype stage and maintain about 20 groups, so statistically this is only an opinion. I can safely say however, that tank raised will breed with both other tank raised and wild caught. Also, spawn sizes seem unaffected as well. However, when I find zebs at a resonable price, I will pick them up to keep things closer to nature.

Now I'm rambling, feel free to e-mail with specific questions. I may take some time to reply, but I can usually find time for others who are actively breeding this fellow. Anything to ease the pressure on a fish who has the misfortune of simply being pretty.

Pleco Farmer, thanks for all the info- it is of great help to speak to someone who has such experience with breeding Zebras. The plecos are settling in now, and I have been staring into the tank for what must be hours since I got them , looking for the body shape and characteristics you mentioned. It is still hard to tell, as they are not very mature and I know I will have a long wait until they are in breeding condition. I am just happy to have them for now as I am very fond of Zebras and they all seem to be nice healthy examples. The Zebra I have in my community aquarium is a male so I am hoping I have at least 1 female in the group I bought recently.
Anyway, thanks for all the advice, it has been a great help!

I happen to have some photographs in diffent angles of zebra pleco's they would be a great addition to any web-site on how to sex the fish, but don't have a place to upload the pics I can email the pics to anyone interested and specify if you want a low or higher and larger resulotion, I had some pics in one site but forgot where it was.

Hi ZebraL046

I have copies of your pics on my zebra site, ( you gave me permission some time ago, it just took an age for me to put them online). Anyway, they are at http://www.qems.biz/speciesinfo.htm

They are definately the best imagaes that I have seen, some high res shots would be excellent in Planet Catfish.

rob

As they grow, you can also monitor behavior. Once settled in, males will spend practically the entire day closeted in their caves, while the females tend to cruise around a bit more. If there are empty caves about, we keep one per fish in the tank, I will usually find females perched among the stones.

I have noticed this in my group of 6. 2 of them have settled in a cave each, whereas one of those is a very typical male - no mistaking him for anything else.

Can I also make assumptions on displayed aggression? These are peaceful fish, but they will occationally chase eachother or "dance", rubbing their bodies next to eachother while shaking, which usually ends in one being chased by the other.

Is it atypical for a female to chase a male away?