Anyone ever SEEN cichlids change sex?

[TOtrees]

Has anyone here ever seen a sex change in aquarium fish? Specifically African or Tanganyikan cichlids? Or have links to threads/articles/sites that discuss it as observed fact, not hypothetically?

I know it can happen in nature, but references to it occurring in aquaria appear scarce. 

Reason for asking is one of my female gold ocellatus shell dwellers in a breeding tank may have changed to male. Appears to have. 

As a breeding tank, the environment/setup is very simple. There are only 4 adult ocellatus, plus a bristlenose. The 4 breeders include the original male/female pair, plus two daughter females that grew up and were accepted as additional breeding females. The 1+3 setup has only been going for like 8 months or so, but in that time I have seen all 3 females with new/tiny babies in separate shells, in separate territories. So there is no question that I had 1+3. 

What I'm seeing now, that makes me go "WTF OMG ETC" is one of the females is behaving like a young male I removed a while ago (went from 2+3 to 1+3). At that time, the young male lurked in the background and lived among the anubias/rocks, not so much in a shell. The "changeling" previously lived and bred in a couple different shells, but has now moved back to the rocks. Possibly because the dominant male won't tolerate him/it near the other females.

I've also lost a number of babies in the past couple weeks, and that's something that last occurred when the younger (2nd) male was around, and ceased when I removed him. And now I'm seeing it again.

So I have a "former female" that is lurking in the background, and missing babies. 

Ocellatus are hard to sex by coloration, but the changeling has gotten much darker in the face, ie between the eyes and around the snout/forehead area. And the whitish cheek is significantly more contrasty. These are traits I've observed in known or suspected males.  

Tagging @Zenzo as he's the only other member I know who keeps ocellatus. 🙂

[Miranda Marie]

Have you ruled out the fish being sick in some way? A change in colors and behavior can also be a sign of illness so I'd rule that out first.

[Andy's Fish Den]

I have not heard of it happening in cichlids, but it does happen in swordtails i was told at one time. Could it have been what is often known as a sneaker male? It is well known in some species such as apistogrammas that a sub dominant male will not develop the male coloration so that the dominant male doesn't want to kill him all the time. If you take the dominant male out of the tank, the sub dominant one will then move up and become the new dominant male. This is why sometimes it is so difficult to accurately sex out apistos if you have several in a tank. 

When I kept occelatus years ago, if you introduce a group of say 6 fish, you will have one dominant male, and he will spawn with a harem of females, and if there are any other males, he will harass them to their death if the tank is small, if it's large enough, the sub dominant male will most likely hide in the corner by himself, or maybe if they tank is large enough, he may have one or two females that the dominant male is not spawning with. 

[Zenzo]

I have never seen this happen with cichlids. What I have frequently seen with cichlids is sub-dominant males showing more female-like physical characteristics (like muted colors) so as to avoid being picked on or beat up by more dominant males. Then, when they have their chance to shine (like growing larger/older, or a dominant male being removed), they will start to display their brighter colors. @TOtrees

[OnlyGenusCaps]

On 1/6/2023 at 4:41 PM, Zenzo said:

I have never seen this happen with cichlids. What I have frequently seen with cichlids is sub-dominant males showing more female-like physical characteristics (like muted colors) so as to avoid being picked on or beat up by more dominant males. Then, when they have their chance to shine (like growing larger/older, or a dominant male being removed), they will start to display their brighter colors.

^^^^This.  Seconded! (Because I can't just give Zenzo's answer a "like" - I am guessing because he is an admin.)

[Zenzo]

Yep...admins can't receive likes/etc. (or reputation points).

[Biotope Biologist]

On 1/6/2023 at 2:41 PM, Zenzo said:

I have never seen this happen with cichlids. What I have frequently seen with cichlids is sub-dominant males showing more female-like physical characteristics (like muted colors) so as to avoid being picked on or beat up by more dominant males. Then, when they have their chance to shine (like growing larger/older, or a dominant male being removed), they will start to display their brighter colors. @TOtrees

Like

 

I can do that though…

Anyway cichlids have not been observed to change sex. In social fish it does pay to hide your male organs or male traits as dominant males can be very territorial especially in an enclosed environment. In this case what appeared to be an observed female was actually a less dominant male in disguise. As stated above. 
 

Usually I would say this is a new topic to science, but cichlid societal hierarchy is well studied.

[TOtrees]

Who knows Occam's Razor? Basically, when presented with multiple competing hypotheses, the one that has the least number of assumptions is likely to be the correct one, all else being equal (which of course it never is). 

My competing hypotheses here are 1) one of my fish changed or is changing sex or 2) it was male all along, and he fooled me and his tankmates, and also somehow managed to have brand new babies in a shell. The burden of proof on #1 is pretty steep, I admit. So just based on that, and with grateful consideration of the comments/expertise given above 🙂, I'm leaning to #2. But one thing doesn't fit.

I have seen instances where all 3 "females" in the tank had teeny new babies at the same time. If you have shellies you know that you don't see egg laying, and from what I gather you don't see the babies for 7-10 days after hatching. So if this changer was male all along, but still had brand new babies, they must have come from another female, and either moved on their own to the male's shell, or been stolen. If it was male, wouldn't they have been eaten instead? Unless he was so invested in his "act" that he solicited accepted or stole babies to complete the masquerade, ie "if I have babies I can't be male, so why would you [the dominant male] bother with me". 

Anyways, I've removed the second male? to a grow-out tank with juvies. So hopefully I'll be back to babies in the breeding setup soon. 

Thanks all! @Zenzo @Biotope Biologist; @Andy's Fish Den