High fin GBR's

Saw some beautiful high fin GBR's Saturday at my lfs.
I've never owned them before, but I do have Bolivians.
Could I keep some of the GBR's with them and how do you tell
male from female? Maybe they are all male, they were so colorful.
They also had beautiful Kribs.

DavidZ said:

How big is your tank?
GBRs in a local store in Brooklyn, I wonder if they are any good.
How big are they do they have color?

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My tank is 75g. you can see on the bottom here what I have in that tank. I don't know, it might be too much, and I do have alot of mid bottom dwellers. the GBR's were not too big, but fairly colorful. Not as colorful as some I've seen in pictures on AC, but nice. I was surprised to see them, and they had really nice Kribs too.

Eastside, the store is World Class Aquarium on Flatbush and P on or abouts. And I was in a rush and didn't look at the price. My bf was in the car so I gave a quick look and ran out with what I needed. I bought my Black Phantoms there and my BG's and never had a problem. They seem to be getting into the small cichlids, will ask where they get them next time I go. He gets dwarf gourami's the powder blue ones from a breeder, I'm sure he orders fish from wherever though, I have no idea. He has beautiful pearl gourami's now and he had some gorgeous harley's, seemed to be just babies but very pretty.

Eastside Game said:

i read that you should try to get locally bred ones because the imported ones were on steroids in order to survive the travel

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I heard that too. I have a Brooklyn Aq. Society meeting Friday, hopefully the auction will have some from someones fish room. I guess I should post on their forum and see if anyone breeds them.

Star_Rider said:

age has a lot to do with coloration. typically, young locally bred fish will not carry much color.. they tend to color up with age.
if the fish are young and show lots of color.. they could have been exposed to hormones..in the past asain bred fish were treated with hormones to improve the coloration of the fish...a side effect of the hormone exposure often made for unhealthy specimens.
regarding mixing the s species in the same tank...
depends on tank size and set up.. typically the bolivian rams comfort zone is not the same as Blue Rams.. blue rams typically prefer warm water(80-84 f) bolivian Rams a bit cooler(78-80f)

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I believe they're young, but they weren't very small, if I'm remembering corectly they had to be at least and inch and a quarter and their fins were nice, high and the bottom fins looks like they will get long too. They weren't overly colored. I guess I'll have to wait till I set up another tank, my tank is 78-80 degree's, too low huh?
Thanks Tabi and everyone for the help!