Apistogramma panduro

[fishinacage]

I've had these apistogramma panduros for about 3 weeks now.   Can anyone confirm that fish A is female and fish B is male?  Or do I have it backwards?

I'm having trouble with them.  Fish A is chasing fish B and fish B is getting stressed.   I'm going to separate them,  but is it better to remove the aggressive one (fish A) or the other.   Is there any hope of them ever pairing up or is it never going to be a good match?

[Dancing Matt]

@tolstoy21 may be able to help. Check them out if you want to enjoy some awesome Apisto pictures.

[tolstoy21]

Hard to say. I don't have a lot of experience with this specific species.  Based on the pictures, I'm going to say their coloration and patterning is probably variable depending on mood, lighting, time of day, etc etc. And this makes it hard to identify. 

I'd lean towards male with A. But with B, not really sure. I guess you'll find out if B takes on breeding coloration, which in this species I'm going to guess results in the black masking the females get. Baenschi are the similar. The breeding vs non-breeding female can exhibit widely different patterning and coloration. 

How old are these fish? Are they similarly sized? 

[fishinacage]

Not sure about age,  but they are roughly the same size.  A might be slightly larger. 

[laritheloud]

They both look somewhat male to me, but B looks more female and A looks more male. Females color up to bright yellow and black for breeding colors, and I see more black in B. If you bought a sexed pair, B is definitely the female of the two.

This is a female in breeding colors: 

Pair, Breeding Colors:



I wouldn't say it's out of the question that you have two males instead of a pair, though. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by laritheloud

[fishinacage]

On 8/11/2022 at 2:52 PM, laritheloud said:

If you bought a sexed pair, B is definitely the female of the two.

I bought a sexed pair so hopefully this is the case.  Thank you!

[tolstoy21]

@fishinacage 

On 8/11/2022 at 2:59 PM, fishinacage said:

I bought a sexed pair so hopefully this is the case.

I got a trio of Trifaciata only to later find out one of the females was a male. Before that however, one of the males killed the true female, and then I noticed that the other 'female' and the male were fighting a lot so I separated them. Shortly after that, the fish that I assumed was a female colored up into a very nice looking male. So now I got two males, and no females.  😞

So . . . . . .  these things do happen. If it happens to you, just know, you're in good company!