Sexing Blue Dempsey? + Growth Update *Pics*

Your lucky that is a real nice bd. Its all little too soon the know the sex of it. (for me anyways, but just a pure guess looking at the fish it looks more female right now). :thm:
 
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I to am also leaning towards female. I am Planning on getting a BD and a JD soon to mate. Ive been reading up on it and the breeding process is somewhat complicated Since if you breed 2 bds the young come out sterile or something.
 
Ryank327 said:
I to am also leaning towards female. I am Planning on getting a BD and a JD soon to mate. Ive been reading up on it and the breeding process is somewhat complicated Since if you breed 2 bds the young come out sterile or something.
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I was hoping it would be Male since I like the long fins on the males, but I can always get more later. I want to breed these someday. I'm confident that I could.

Breeding them is fairly complicated:

First you breed a BD with a JD. That will give you some "carrier" JD's.

Then, grow out the fry and breed one of the carrier JD's with a BD (you can use it's parent, or a new BD). This will yield 50% BD in the fry.

If you breed two carrier JD's, you'll get 25% BD (which is how Hector Luzardo discovered the BD).

Breeding two BD will yield nothing but extremely weak fry that can't swim properly and eventually all die.
 
Well, a couple of weeks after the above pictures were taken, I lost that blue dempsey to ich. I had some platies in my 180g and when my fish in that 180 became large enough for feeders, I decided to give it a try. I didn't quarantine the feeders like I should've and I moved the platies to the 29g after adding the feeders, so the parasite transfered as well. I tried the salt treatment, but it was too late.

I was crushed and I guess I took an absence from the forums for a while since I was disgusted with myself for ignoring what I knew had to be done.

Well, I thought I'd never get another blue dempsey since that was the first time I had ever seen one or owned one, but when I told my buddy Steve about them (his petstore is where I got it) he said he could order some for me. Two days later he calls and says he has 6 juvies!!!!

So I went to his store last weekend and picked up two. These little fry are about the size of my rasboras!! lol The good news is that they're already eating blood worms and flakes. My first one would only eat live worms and I had gotten lucky with teaching him to eat pellets.

So anyways....I'll post pics of the new baby elec. blue demps later today.
 
Well, I guess tommorrow turned into a month and 8 days later, but here are the update pics on the two juvies....

I wish I took pics when I first got them, since they were the size of rasboras, but here they are a month later:

I think I have a pair....not like they can produce fry.
bdpairwwood.jpg


What do you think?
bdpairintake.jpg


This is the one I think is a male. Note the fins.
bdmale.jpg


This is the one I think is a female.
bdfemale.jpg



There's an obvious difference in their shade of blue. The one I feel is a female, has a light blue that almost looks white, while the one I think is a male is a lot darker. Time will tell, but they won't breed successfully anyways....at least that's what I've read. I'll let them try once they're large enough for the 180g.
 
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I think you have a pair. However, I think the one you think is male is a female and vice versa. Well, I hope I'm right otherwise I have a female blue.
The one I think is a male gets a long real well with my female standard dempsey and not the male at all. I had to take my standard male out of the tank because he was going to kill my blue.
Here are some picts of a male and a female blue.
http://www.aquahobby.com/mdempsey.html
 
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Cylon said:
I think you have a pair. However, I think the one you think is male is a female and vice versa. Well, I hope I'm right otherwise I have a female blue.
The one I think is a male gets a long real well with my female standard dempsey and not the male at all. I had to take my standard male out of the tank because he was going to kill my blue.
Here are some picts of a male and a female blue.
http://www.aquahobby.com/mdempsey.html
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Yeah I've seen that link before....actually, I've contacted Marcos before regarding his pics. I was sexing my BD's based on how he sexed his.....long fins with darker colors = male. Small fins wtih lighter colors = female.

Here's some more BD links you can check out that have good photos:

http://mysite.verizon.net/res0wbxx/id20.html

http://www.aquanovel.com/dempsey.htm

http://www.elacuarista.com/luzardo/blueI1.htm

http://www.cichlidlovers.com/n_blue_dempsey.htm

http://tropicalresources.net/phpBB2/fish_profiles_octofaciatus_blue.php

Enjoy....they're a gorgeous fish.
 
this settles it. I must have one. I will print a few images and get the store to get them
 
re

I'm not sure after looking. Are you still sticking with your orignal thoughts? What do you think the sex in now?
 
Cylon said:
I'm not sure after looking. Are you still sticking with your orignal thoughts? What do you think the sex in now?
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I'm sticking with my original thoughts: short fins with lighter color is the female, and the long fins with darker colors is the male.

None of this matters since I'm not looking to breed them, it's just nice to see the difference between the two.

Something interesting about this fish is the diversity of the markings, fins etc... Some BD's have lots of dark markings....some have almost no dark markings. A lot depends on age, but even as youngsters you can see a difference in fin length etc...

EDIT: I originally had plans to breed them, but I won't have the facilities to do it anymore......the 80g will be a goldfish tank, lol.
 
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