Sexing yellow tailed acei

[nano55]

How can you tell the difference between male and female aceis'?

[nano cichlids]

Males tend to be more brightly colored females are duller

[jpappy789]

Color is never a sure fire way to sex with africans as it will always depend on the individual fish. Like I said in your other thread, venting is the only 100% method.

[Pittbull]

venting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or buy 6 to 7 juvies

[ibr3ak]

Aceis are strongly monomorphic, both males and females can be bright or dull, like jpappy said color is rarely if ever an indication of sex especially with monomorphic species.

Africans have also been known to take on a color of an opposite sex (from my own experience), without actually changing the sex, so vent them it's easy and you'll know for sure.

[ibr3ak]

P.S. I get my africans from a species tank and look for the most dominant fish in the tank, which will usually yield a male (this is not a 100%, but if the fish are anywhere around 2" the odds are in favor of it being a male) it's how I've got my acei, yellow lab, red zebra, afra and greshakei, which after venting are all males. Alot of lfs's will also let you vent fish (again if they're sexually mature) or will vent them for you, if they don't feel comfortable with you handling their fish.

[kay-bee]

When fully matured the dorsal and anal fin tips of males will be pointy-er and their pelvic fins are proportionately larger (compared to the rounded tips and proportionately smaller pelvic fins of the females). Behavior (usually in the form of the instinct to attract mates) will also let you know.

Smaller juvies are harder to tell, but with acei's gender ratio isn't important if you've got a well sized group of them (7+).

For a smaller group (4-5), you may shoot for 2m/2-3f, in which case you probably will want to vent.

[jamesprx]

Males will have more blue in the dorsal fin than females (assuming we're speaking about acei 'msuli', or blue yellow-finned).

[blue2fyre]

Good luck lol

I have a group of yellow tailed acei and I know I have one male and one female(they have bred) the rest I'm not 100% sure about. I got all the juvies at the same time and I had a couple that grew way faster and turned out to be male.I removed extra males and now I believe I have mostly females. My largest male is brighter and generally looks nicer but the other males blended right in with the females. The females tend to stick together a bit more from what I've read. I have a school of 4 and the male will be off on the other side of the tank doing his own thing. It's all guessing in the end, I have found acei to be very difficult to sex without venting them. Luckily they are not as picky about the gender ratios as most other mbuna