Identifying male or female clowns?

[Sophia]

Just checking - Blueeyes bought some clowns that have a faint yellow stripe in the tail. I have now bought a definite male and another that has the faint yellow in the tail to go and live with those. We are wondering is the faint yellow in the tail sign of being a female or a younger male? The 2 I got are of similar size but the tails are different, but I thought the females have a completely clear tail. I couldn't see any definite photos of females on the web either.

Can someone put us out of our misery or is it just too early to tell? :dunno:

[Sunbird73]

Don't know the answer sorry - but I think I had my eye on these two clowns if you got them from the shore I had just been contemplating whether I needed to set up a clown killie tank LOL, and had gone home to check to see if I could determine the gender of the ones in the shop, and to see if I could find out the size that you can sex them at. (didn't really get anywhere!)

They are gorgeous fish, so CUTE. But don't know anything about killies so maybe that was lucky you beat me to it.

I found some pics, very hard to find photos of just females

http://www.alfanita.se/alfanita_se_old/oldfiskar/pseudep_annulatus_maboshi.htm

In this pic there seems to be a very very faint yellow stripe in the middle on the female on that one

http://www.aquaticquotient.com/forum/showthread.php/17272-Clown-killie-Pseudepiplatys-annulatus

where here the female looks completely clear to me

So.... dunno. What are the dorsal and anal fins looking like? Perhaps patience + time maybe....

[Sophia]

thanks for the photos - yes I got those from Aquaworld, last 2

[Zev]

These are the ones we usually get here:

The male's tail is usually longer and tapers off to a point and looks like a rocket flare, hence the other common name Rocket killie. There is usually orange in the centre and two red lines either side. The dorsal and anal fins are also edged with red and taper to a point more than the female's.

The females usually have little or no colour in the fins or tail and and the tail is almost rounded at the end and does not taper so dramatically as the male's does. They have a slightly deeper body with a more pronounced roundness in the gut area.

A sub dominant male may show little or no colour in order not to get beaten up by the dominant male.

HTH

[livebearer_breeder]

wow, one killie i never owned, on the want list

[Sophia]

thanks Diane