Did Petco Sell Me a Male or Female?

[Cinnebuns]

I have decided to practice my breeding skills on petco $2 mutts before investing into better genes. I have had fish for a little over a month now. I got my lone male guppy 2 girlfriends. Or so I was told but am not sure. Before anyone asks or comments I do have plans for fry. 3 different places they can go. I'm questioning if this really is a female. I'm extremely new to this but I don't see a gravid spot yet I see an anal fin. She/He does have a small tail and not brightly colored so idk. I also have noticed that although the male does stick by the other female a lot, he doesn't pay any attention to this one. Does seem to gave a female rounded body but idk. What do you think?  Btw I was forced to go to petco for them so I would not at all be surprised if they got it wrong.  The other female I got is def a female 

Edited December 23, 2021 by Cinnebuns

[Cory]

Male in the photo.

[Cinnebuns]

On 12/23/2021 at 3:16 AM, Cory said:

Male in the photo.

Damn, I was hoping my noobness would make me wrong. I guess it's a good thing I learned enough to know better than what that silly store told me. Going to my LFS tomorrow to get an actual female so my male doesn't harass the 1 female too much. Ty!

[KobaBetta]

A good way to distinguish between males and females is by looking at the fins under the fish. Males will have a stick like fin and females will have a triangular fin.

[CalmedByFish]

When you look for the difference in abdominal fin shape, keep in mind that females regularly "fold" their fan-shaped fin for a moment here and there, making it look like a gonopodium.

So if you see a clear fan-shape, it's very likely to be female. (Rarely, it's a late-blooming male.)

But if you see a gonopodium shape on a fish you really like, and the body shape doesn't make it obvious that it's a male, keep staring at the abdominal fin for a minute to see if maybe it'll open into a fan. You might get a really cool female by doing that.

[Cinnebuns]

@CalmedByFish the gonopodium is what immediately made me realize it was male. I was unsure mostly because of inexperience and it's, let's be frank, ugly color and tail. Knowing that a female can disguise this does help for sexing in the future. Tips like that might save me some mistakes!

[PineSong]

On 12/23/2021 at 5:29 PM, Cinnebuns said:

@CalmedByFish the gonopodium is what immediately made me realize it was male. I was unsure mostly because of inexperience and it's, let's be frank, ugly color and tail. Knowing that a female can disguise this does help for sexing in the future. Tips like that might save me some mistakes!

I don't think his color is ugly 🙂 There are some colors of guppies that look more amazing when there are many of them in a tank, while just one of them is maybe a little plain. I think black Moscow guppies fit into this category.

Then there are some where they really stand out when there is just one of them mixed in with other fish, but a whole tank of them is almost too much, like these:

 

[Cinnebuns]

On 12/23/2021 at 6:57 PM, PineSong said:

There are some colors of guppies that look more amazing when there are many of them in a tank, while just one of them is maybe a little plain

That's fair. I still vote him ugly and off the island. He's now in my friend's tank lol. When I thought he was female I kinda liked him. For a male I'm not a fan.