CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

can female M. Johanni get real dark fin tips and some dark horizontal lines in the body like the male one ? but the base
stay orange.

tkx...

yes females can have a pattern.
young males can also be orange with a pattern though

As long as it's orange and full grown it's a female

full grown non-dominate males should turn purple or grey

a bit of history. i have these 4 cichlid when they were .75-1 inches, and they had since grown to about 2.5 inches now.

The one male has been time out. It is pale blue with dark stripe, and sometimes gray. It used to be the boss until i suspected it was suffering bloat a few weeks ago, i isolated him and treated him. He made it.

Meanwhile, I put back the large female (same size as the male) that he had been tearing her fins around, and the other female that had just make some babies, both back into the 55 gallon.

The larger female which never bear any babies, started to become darker and darker lines, but the base i can see is still orange, except the forehead has a bit of bluish.

Then yesterday, I observed this big female to be exhibiting male behavior, she/he allows the smaller female (that had bear babies) into the cave he/she always guarded, and he/she guarded outside the cave protectively, and afterwards, the female went away. I don't expect her to start holding anytime soon, since her last brood just turns 2 weeks old.

Anyway, today, I put back the male into the 55 gallon tank, much to my surprise, this unknown
gender went head-to-head with him, until this used-to-be dominant male actually run away and i notice it is getting stressed out as this unknown gender one started to follow him and pester him to no avail, and he started hiding at the top of the tank.

I ended up isolating the dominant unknown gender, since it went into her cave, and i just scoop up the cave. and put her in a bucket with his/her favorite cave and suspend the bucket inside my 55 g tank. i am hoping this will ease the stress the male would suffer from the tank without tearing the whole tank up to catch him back out, etc.

Can a female be more dominant than a male ?
He/she is orange based, except the forehead which started to have that bluish tint also aside from dark fins. He/She never hold, has that same ugly face the male. Yet despite at that time, he/she seems to be the most dominant fish, she never became bluish on the body part.

Would you bet on it being a female or a male ? if you were in my shoes.

If it is a female, i need it to be subdominant to the male, so i can have 2 female to one male. if it is a he, i need to find a way to trade it for a female with my LFS.

it is about 2.5, the male has turn bluish 3 months ago same size as it is.

thanks. i never though finding out the gender of a johanni can be this difficult. i always know yellow lab are mysterious when it come to gender differentiation.

thanks.

which started to have that bluish tint also aside from dark fins.

Sounds like its a male,that hasn't changed color

i always know yellow lab are mysterious when it come to gender differentiation.

NA -
only males have black chins (dominate males can even have a black head)
only males have noticable black in the ventral area (more as they age)
With my group it also seems the males have wider heads

from your reply, i would then definitely put my bet on it being a male.

after removing this mysterious fish, my used to be dominant male is more settled now today. they all seems to have sorted their order out now, the female auratus (which) i am going to trade off too for a female johanni is bugging him at first. but today, they seems to each occupy their own cave and stay away from each other.

one good thing that came out of it, this male is a lot mellow now, now that he is not the head of the pack, the auratus keep him in check, and he no longers chase the other female ( that has hold for him before) all the time.

gee.. this is the weirdess johanni i had ever seen.
eversince the male one was ill, this has turn almost black, and now i had the used-to-be dominant male back in the tank, in half a day, this weird johanni had terrorized the male to the point it is hiding in the top of the tank, and so i take out this bad-weird johanni who never hold and i dont know whether it is a male or female anyway, as soon as i left it in a separate tank for 2 days, it is now completely orange again.

yet it is exhibiting the male behavior of aggression, and the male behavior of mating. i wonder what the hell it is. to choose between, i will keep my original male, at least i know it mated with the other females which hold.

I have an electric blue male johanni.

He's really nicely collored all straight horizontal lines blue on dark blue with the white tipped fins and silver blue on nose and his gills.

Problem is I am having all kinds of trouble finding females for him locally, nobody has any and everyone tries to sell me muted non dominant males as females.

Can anyone come to my rescue for my lonely Johan has no friends.

Thanks.