German blue ram sexing?

[WaterSpite]

Hi all,

I need some help double checking the sex of my two German rams.

I got them from a very good aquarium shop where I live and ask for a male and female but the person helping me said it harder because they are quite young but was maybe 70% confident they pick a male and female. The reason I'm worried is that the one a believe is male chases away the female when he notices her unless he is too distracted by feeding time. 

The first two image is the one without a spot and bigger, but is generally confident (will approach the glass). Second two images is the smaller one with a spot but spot has blue over it. (They are harder to get pictures of because they are shyer)

[Fish Folk]

At this stage of growth, it is not easy to sex them. If you forced me to make a call… I’d say you may have two males.

But that’s a very difficult call to be sure. I can share many photos of Rams we’ve bought and ones we’ve raised, and the difficulty may be apparent.

Since I’ve answered this question for others before, let me try to find some examples of Rams I’ve sexed with notes…

First, here’s two photos another Forum contributor posted. My assessment was that these photos were of female GBR:

Now, here are photos of Rams I’ve hatched and raised. Some are photos of the same fish. The black spot can vary, get a blue cast, etc.

Male:

Female (note the bright jeweled scales at head-side of black spot):

Male:

Male:

Female (note bright jeweled scales at head side of black spot, and bright streak at base of dorsal 3rd lobe contrasted against black):

L-R: Female / Male / Female…

Male (note that the black spot can turn blue):

 

Are you trying to breed them? 

[WaterSpite]

Okay, I'll keep an eye on their development. I have a 180 litre tank that's heavily planted (40 gallon, the dimensions are similar to a breeder tank) so they should have plenty of room to mark out territories but I keep an eye out incase I need to re-home/return one. 

I'm not planning on breeding them, I just love their behaviour and appearance. 

I've also noticed something as I was watching them yesterday. The bigger one isn't chasing the smaller one away as much. If the bigger one does turn to chase the smaller one will back away a small distance and that seems to appease the bigger about 60% of the time. If they do chase them is a much smaller distance.