kacie

I found this distributor/hatchery near me (1 hour away). They breed african cichlids there and at their florida location. My whole family came with me and it was cool. The warehouse was insulated and warm inside with tanks from the floor to maybe 8 feet and isles of them. My husband looked at all the tanks and didn't see any dead fish. They had such pretty fish and tanks of babies, very awesome. They also carry american cichlids so I had called them earlier in the week and asked for male and female Bolivian rams, which they assured me they could identify. I have had such bad experiences with my LFS that this place was my last hope. The person there so carefully studied and caught my fishies, using a very very large net. Then she put them into a very very large bag, with blue water, and put the bag, and an air filled bag, into a big insulated box, and taped it up for me.

Wow! so different from the annoying dudes from my ifs.

Well I was super careful with the acclimation and they just ate their dinner, so I have high hopes.

Sorry for the long post. I will post pics when I can. They are pushing each other around a bit. I hope that is normal.

04_si

good luck! I really hope they pair up for you.

MissMTS

That is so exciting! I wish that I had a breeder or hatchery to get my fish from. It sounds like they really take care of their fish and sell quality livestock. I look forward to seeing the pics when you post them

capekate

You are very lucky to have a hatchery nearby! Now you have a great place to get all your fish! I would love to have one like that nearby... it must have been a lot of fun to walk around a warehouse full of tanks!
Best of luck to your new Bolivians...

Lucy

I agree, how cool! Can't wait for pics.

kacie

I love these fishies. They are friendly and are settling in nicely. I don't want to freak them out with a flash so my pictures are terrible ones from my phone. I very stupidly forgot to ask which was the female. One is much bigger than the other but they must be different ages. I have a feeling that the bigger one is a mature female and the little one is the male. They push each other around a bit. The bigger one may be more dominant but it is not clear. The little one takes turns being the boss. I wish I knew so that I could name them.

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mathas

They are wonderful fish! You'll love them.

A user at cichlid-forums.com wrote a sexing guide for bolivians found here. While the information and pictures are great, the web design portion leaves a bit to be desired... the pictures overlap and obscure the text on every browser I have. Maybe it's a Mac browser issue The first two pics on his site, the ventrical differences, are good examples of the most sure-fire way to sex them.

Another method that holds true for all of my rams is the shape of the tail. I've attached the best picture I have of my dominant female ram (spawn1.jpg), and my dominant male (spawn2.jpg). Note the extended top and bottom ray (is that the right word?) on the male's tail. All three of my males have that trait, though it's most pronounced on the alpha male. None of the females have it at all.

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kacie

Neither have extended rays on the tail. I read everything I could find online about the fish and still can't figure mine out. The small one is only about 1 1/2 inches so maybe it is the male and hasn't developed yet. I know what site you're talking about. It is odd how offcenter it is.
Thank you for posting the pics. Your rams are soooo beautiful.

mathas

I don't know how precise the tail-shape method of sexing is, I just know it's true for all of my rams. It could be like the extended dorsal ray, where it's usually true for males, but not always.

In my opinion, the best way to know (other than to watch them spawn), is by the shape of the breeding tubes. I wasn't able to notice a difference until I'd had my rams for a couple of months, but I don't know if they needed to mature, or if they needed to feel comfortable in their new home, or some combination of those.

kacie

I called the hatchery and they said that the male was the bigger one. So that explains why he has claimed 3/4 of the tank. They are such interesting fish. The female, who is soooo much smaller than him is always poking her head out from behind the wood (her territory)and checking out if he is looking, and if he's not she sneaks over the line and pokes around. Then he notices, they flare up at each other and she retreats. Then sometimes they switch.

kacie

Today She is swimming all over and he is letting her so maybe if he begins to like her they may spawn. I hope so. I think the only way I can convince anyone in this family to let me get another tank is if they breed.

04_si

with GBRs you can encourage spawning by feeding frozen food like bloodworms, and turning the temp of the water to 81-82 (depends what else is in the tank though) and then when they start colouring up a little, change water, but make it a touch cooler than the water in the tank (think - rainy season)

ive had good luck doing that just not good luck with them eating the babies...

kacie

AWesome advice. Bolivians are supposed to be better parents but my zebra danios will surely eat the babies.

04_si

aw too bad! if they can spawn a couple times maybe you can get a small tank for them!

kacie

That's what I mean. My MTS is dependent upon these two getting together.

04_si

yep thats why i posted that!

anything yet?

kacie

Nothing yet. They are not really friends. Mostly keeping to their own territories. I did a pwc and rearranged slightly to give the smaller one a larger territory and to make the rock surfaces more flat. I've been feeding bloodworms at night but the danios gobble most of them up.

04_si

hopefully soon..... i think they need their own tank...

mathas

It's probably going to take longer than six days for them to feel comfortable enough in a new tank to pair off and spawn. My rams took almost two months to reach that point, and kacie noted that the female is "soooo much smaller" than the male... my females are barely smaller than my males, so kacie's may not even be sexually mature yet.

And even though one of each sex is present, if either decides the other is not a suitable mate, they won't spawn.

kacie

Well let's wait and see if they are really a male and female and if they like each other? I promised m family to be less fish obsessed once I got these Bolivians so I have to chill a bit about the idea of more tanks. I am so happy that the fish all seem happy. I am just nervous about adding kuhli loaches again. My son keeps looking for them and I've kept up the fiction of them hiding. I don't have a Q tank.

kacie

Yes Mathas is right. I am just so facinated by their behavior.

kacie

So the hatchery says the larger one is the male. I hope these pictures are not too blurry. Okay for some reason I cannot post the photo here. Look at my profile if you want.

04_si

mine paired almost instantly, and spawned within a week i think it was. Maybe i was just lucky..

kacie

There is a new article at http://www.cichlid-forum.com/article...pinosa_pt2.php

It was posted today and is the best information I've found so far on these fish.

Check it out!

04_si

wow thats in depth! thanks for posting!

Shaina

I have four Bolivians, and the finnage is very different between the males and females. If your male doesn't even have extensions on his fins yet, maybe he is not yet mature enough to spawn.

Males: In these pics, you can clearly see the extension on the caudal and dorsal fins. The anal fin is also somewhat longer and pointier.





Females: Lack the extensions, and have a shorter, more rounded anal fin. Also usually now this dark...this female hates the camera and gets dark after the first shot...and it seems most of my female shots are head-on, so hopefully this one is enough to get the idea.


Hope this helps...

kacie

Thank you for posting the beautiful photos. Your fish and tank look awesome. I'm only trusting the hatchery about their sexes. The larger fish doesn't look like a male and the smaller one is too young to sex. hmm

Shaina

Thank you very much.

When I got my four at about 1-1.5", they were unsexable to my untrained eyes. That is, their fin structure and coloring were virtually identical. Between 1.5-2" they really differentiated, so it's very possible that the hatchery can ID genders with great certainty long before we lowly laypeople and that your guy just hasn't matured. Time will tell either way.

Good luck...I hope you get the pair you were hoping for