Sexing Bolivian Rams

Suspected female..... Lucky gal has 4 males to choose from. Surely there must be a charming, rich, doctor ram amongst them?

 

Hi Broder,

@Shakier posted that his Bolivians spawned, maybe he can send you pics of the pair to help with sexing.

(awesome photo btw, that seems to be female bits LOL)

 

Hey @Broder , I'm starting to feel your pain about how difficult it can be to locate Bolivian Ram pairs - I'm now searching the forum! Anyway, so can you give an update on this - have you been able to confirm whether you have 1 female and 4 males?

 

I'm fairly certain that I have 5 males, but only because they haven't spawned at all. There are so many slight differences between all 5 of them that I'll never be able to sex Rams with confidence. If I was you, I'd buy a group of at least 7 and hope for the best.

 

Hey Broder

I recently got a second Bolivian Ram, which I hoped was a male for my female that I got a while back. You are right, sexing them is not as easy as looking at the dorsal fin etc. The only characteristic I relied on was the sex organs. Luckily I got it right and now have a breeding pair. Both the male and female have characteristics of the opposite sex. Elongated fins, bulky head, colouration, etc, etc. Not one of these were a surefire way to tell (I learnt that lesson from trying to sex GBR's). Anyway, it looks to me like you have all males except for the one you suspect is a female. She has a blunt/squarish end to her sex organ (good for laying eggs), so I also think it is a female. Has she paired up yet?

In my case:

Female:
Colours up fantastically compared to the dull male.
Her third dorsal fin extends a bit beyond the rest, but is much thicker and more blunt than that of the male's third dorsal fin.
Her head is much more bulky than the males.

Male:
His head is much more torpedo like.
Dull colouration compared to the female.
A bit more slender and longer than female.
Caudal fin extensions visible and I think it will continue to extend


There is a good video on youtube about sexy BR's.

Sorry, no photos yet. Will try a some stage, but not a fan of TASA's photo album experiment

 

RoGe

I got my rams in Dbn. One in a shop in Hillcrest and the other in a shop on Umhlanga Rocks drive. Sure you can figure out the names of the shops. Phone in advance and ask if they have in stock. Brilliant fish and not as 'dead in a month' as German Blue rams.

 

If I have a female, they haven't paired up yet. Glad you came right though. Hopefully you hear the pitted patter of children's fins soon. You'll see the male wear his glad rags when he's ready to mate.

 

@chmarshall81 I assume the umhlanga rocks drive one is euro-spirit? How recently did you get a bolivian from there? I asked them to order bolivians, they did (apparently), and I managed to successfully select a pair. Only problem is that upon closer inspection, and once at home alone, they were actually German blues.. So not that impressed, but very much my own fault.. The only reason I wanted bolivians is because they're more tolerant of water parameters, and from what I can tell from municipal reports, my pH is around 8 with medium hardness. So far the German blues seem to be doing pretty well though, but I don't think I'll have much luck with breeding.

Please put me on your list for two baby bolivians when you have them!

 

RoGe:
Was there last week. They had a tank in the bottom row with what I thought were 3 males. Two quite confident ones and one bullied one. Naturally I took a bully. The female I have is an Afrikaner and I needed a boy with balls to stand up to her. The GRB's are normally in the 3 ft tanks in the back against the wall in the same tank as the rummy noses and discus. I would like to believe that their GBR's are good quality, so you might be extremely lucky. But yes, next time, rather just Google the fish first, sommer in the shop.