Discus Changing Sex

[wiseone]

Amazing Discovery!! Discus Fish Are Capable Of Sex Changing By Itself. I Have Found That Out By Experience. I Have A Pair Of Discus And Confirmed At The Time He Was Paired Up With A Female And Spawned A Few Times With Young Fry Hatching So I Know He Was A Fertile Male Discus. Later On I Traded It With A Friend Of Mine Who Is A Great Discus Fish Hobbyist As Well. He Kept The Supposely Male( Cobalt Blue) In A Tank With 4 Other Males (brilliant Blue/ Cobalt Blue) But The Other Four Male Were Slightly Bigger In Size. After Some Time The Male From Me Paired Up With One Of The Bigger Male In That Tank And They Were Spawning And Very Evidently I Can See Where They Are Spawning That The Supposely Male From Me Was The One Laying The Eggs To The Breeding Cone. I Came To A Conclusion That Discus Can Sex Change When Kept In The Same Tank With Others Of The Same Sex And That Are More Dominant Over It And It Triggers That Weaker One Of The Same Sex To Change It's Sex. - Article published in one of wiki pages

Is it Possible???

[XAnhLe]

How do you know if the other four were males? 2 possibilities here: 1. your cobalt blue is female all along 2. At least one of your friends discus is a female.

I have never heard of discus changing sex and as far as I am aware, it doesn't happen.

[John_Nicholson]

I respectfully disagree with your "discovery". While some live bearers such as sword tails appear to do this I really doubt that any discus do it.

-john

[zimmjeff]

None of mine will darn it. Jeff

[Discus-n00b]

While some fish do this (seems to be mainly reef fish), like Clownfish, gobies, anthias, some wrasse, etc I've never seen real evidence or heard of a discus doing it. While I can not totally discount it given the fact that there are fish, snakes, and insects that all have these gender altering capabilities I do have my doubts it happens in discus. Someone would of found it before now. I think this case is a case of mistaken identity and your male was actually a female all along.

[lksdrinker]

I've never heard of this phenomenon with Discus. However I believe its well documented that this can occur with checkerboard cichlids (Crenicara punctulatum). If I understand it correctly, all fish are born female and the dominant fish becomes the leader of the pack morphing into a male. If that fish dies or is removed from the group then the next most dominant female will assume his role and eventually morph into a male. Pretty interesting stuff!

[Solid]

I have also heard of several fish that can change sex so I suppose anything is possible. I'm a bit skeptical in the validity of an article that capitalizes every word in every sentence. Ugh! Makes it hard to read!

[DISCUS STU]

Sounds like a little sexual confusion, not on the fish's part but on the part of the one keeping track of all these blue/cobalt types.

As far as I know Discus don't and cannot do this.

[jmf3460]

I have also heard of several fish that can change sex so I suppose anything is possible. I'm a bit skeptical in the validity of an article that capitalizes every word in every sentence. Ugh! Makes it hard to read!

+1 for validity of a post with such grammatical errors. plus with all the facts on discus. I feel like this would be common knowledge if it were true.

[Banzai883]

highly unlikely

[Skip]

is it possible?

no

[nc0gnet0]

is it possible?

no
Possible?

Yes, but then again I might win the lottery 2x in a row too. A fully functioning hermaphrodite perhaps?

[pitdogg2]

I also respectfully disagree...

[aalbina]

I was also pretty skeptical but there is actually some, not very strong, evidence of sequential hermaphroditism in cichlids. Of course, this doesn't mean this can be generalized to discus but it does peak my interest.

Article can be found here: doi: http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1643/0045-8511%282000%292000%5B0071%3AFCCPIA%5D2.0.CO%3B2


Amazing Discovery!! Discus Fish Are Capable Of Sex Changing By Itself. I Have Found That Out By Experience. I Have A Pair Of Discus And Confirmed At The Time He Was Paired Up With A Female And Spawned A Few Times With Young Fry Hatching So I Know He Was A Fertile Male Discus. Later On I Traded It With A Friend Of Mine Who Is A Great Discus Fish Hobbyist As Well. He Kept The Supposely Male( Cobalt Blue) In A Tank With 4 Other Males (brilliant Blue/ Cobalt Blue) But The Other Four Male Were Slightly Bigger In Size. After Some Time The Male From Me Paired Up With One Of The Bigger Male In That Tank And They Were Spawning And Very Evidently I Can See Where They Are Spawning That The Supposely Male From Me Was The One Laying The Eggs To The Breeding Cone. I Came To A Conclusion That Discus Can Sex Change When Kept In The Same Tank With Others Of The Same Sex And That Are More Dominant Over It And It Triggers That Weaker One Of The Same Sex To Change It's Sex. - Article published in one of wiki pages

Is it Possible???

[pitdogg2]

linky no workie.....


This DOI cannot be found in the DOI System. Possible reasons are:

The DOI is incorrect in your source. Search for the item by name, title, or other metadata using a search engine.
The DOI was copied incorrectly. Check to see that the string includes all the characters before and after the slash and no sentence punctuation marks.
The DOI has not been activated yet. Please try again later, and report the problem if the error continues.

[Second Hand Pat]

The link worked for me.
Pat

[pitdogg2]

strange you can see what I got??

[Second Hand Pat]

strange you can see what I got??

Try the link again. Adam edited his post after you tried the first time to use it.
Pat

[pitdogg2]

yep it now works..

[aalbina]

OK the reason is that I work at a University and the article is part of a subscription for which we pay to this research journal Copeia - so coming from my campus we automatically have access (through a reverse DNS process for you techies). So here is the citation.
Carruth, L. L. (2000). Freshwater Cichlid Crenicara punctulata Is a Protogynous Sequential Hermaphrodite.
Copeia, 2000(1), 71–82. doi:10.1643/0045-8511(2000)2000[0071:FCCPIA]2.0.CO;2

I can download the full text pdf file and read the research article but I cannot legally upload it here. Here is the abstract:

Freshwater Cichlid Crenicara punctulata Is a Protogynous Sequential Hermaphrodite
Full Access

Laura L. Carruth

Department of Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0334. Present address: Department of Physiological Science, 621 Charles E. Young Drive, South, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1527. carruth@lifesci.ucla.edu.

Abstract

Several papers have suggested that the Freshwater Cichlid Crenicara punctulata is capable of protogynous sex change. These studies provide behavioral data and descriptive details of external morphology but lack information about gonadal histology, which is essential for definitive evidence of sequential hermaphroditism. Therefore, this study was designed to determine whether C. punctulata is a sequential hermaphrodite. The present study included a behavioral experiment, an isolation/transformation experiment, as well as a detailed analysis of gonadal structure. The behavioral experiment established social hierarchies in four groups of juvenile female C. punctulata. The hypothesis that the dominant female in each group would be the only individual to develop male secondary sexual characteristics in that group was verified. The isolation experiment tested the hypothesis that female C. punctulata would change sex without the presence of conspecifics. After social isolation, females that were previously dominant among a group of females in a male harem developed male secondary sexual characteristics. Histological analysis revealed that these individuals possessed testes, whereas all dominant females examined possessed mature ovaries. The results from behavioral, isolation, and histological portions of this project strongly suggest that C. punctulata is a protogynous sequential hermaphrodite, at least in captivity.





linky no workie.....


This DOI cannot be found in the DOI System. Possible reasons are:

The DOI is incorrect in your source. Search for the item by name, title, or other metadata using a search engine.
The DOI was copied incorrectly. Check to see that the string includes all the characters before and after the slash and no sentence punctuation marks.
The DOI has not been activated yet. Please try again later, and report the problem if the error continues.

[aalbina]

Oh great - thanks Pat, glad it works I thought maybe it was a restricted resource.

Adam


Try the link again. Adam edited his post after you tried the first time to use it.
Pat

[lksdrinker]

OK the reason is that I work at a University and the article is part of a subscription for which we pay to this research journal Copeia - so coming from my campus we automatically have access (through a reverse DNS process for you techies). So here is the citation.
Carruth, L. L. (2000). Freshwater Cichlid Crenicara punctulata Is a Protogynous Sequential Hermaphrodite.
Copeia, 2000(1), 71–82. doi:10.1643/0045-8511(2000)2000[0071:FCCPIA]2.0.CO;2

I can download the full text pdf file and read the research article but I cannot legally upload it here. Here is the abstract:

Freshwater Cichlid Crenicara punctulata Is a Protogynous Sequential Hermaphrodite
Full Access

Laura L. Carruth

Department of Environmental, Population and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0334. Present address: Department of Physiological Science, 621 Charles E. Young Drive, South, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1527. carruth@lifesci.ucla.edu.

Abstract

Several papers have suggested that the Freshwater Cichlid Crenicara punctulata is capable of protogynous sex change. These studies provide behavioral data and descriptive details of external morphology but lack information about gonadal histology, which is essential for definitive evidence of sequential hermaphroditism. Therefore, this study was designed to determine whether C. punctulata is a sequential hermaphrodite. The present study included a behavioral experiment, an isolation/transformation experiment, as well as a detailed analysis of gonadal structure. The behavioral experiment established social hierarchies in four groups of juvenile female C. punctulata. The hypothesis that the dominant female in each group would be the only individual to develop male secondary sexual characteristics in that group was verified. The isolation experiment tested the hypothesis that female C. punctulata would change sex without the presence of conspecifics. After social isolation, females that were previously dominant among a group of females in a male harem developed male secondary sexual characteristics. Histological analysis revealed that these individuals possessed testes, whereas all dominant females examined possessed mature ovaries. The results from behavioral, isolation, and histological portions of this project strongly suggest that C. punctulata is a protogynous sequential hermaphrodite, at least in captivity.


I believe that is the checkerboard cichlid I referenced earlier. Ted Judy recently posted a vid about this that I found interesting.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n66x5n9QrFE

[JohnniG]

Probably just got the gender wrong from the get go.

[n2kboyi]

Wiseone,

I totally believe and agreed to what you are saying is true. Discus do and can change sex. I have an occurrence that is almost identical to your story. I had a confirm male and i gave him to my friend who house him with a group consist of males and females but all of which is bigger than him. Later on she which was suppose to be the HE spawned with another male. I have mentioned to other discus hobbyist many of which are very knowledgeable and experienced with discus but all have denied and against of my belief. Until today I came across this thread and I am 100% the discus can and will change sex when house together with a group more dominate than him. :guitarist:

[Dhavalsp]

interesting conversation - ' Giving to a friend' appears to be the most significant factor associated with discus sex change!

P.S: I don't believe that discus can change sex, but I will believe it if I see it happening.

[zhuls1]

Hmm, i guess theres alot we don't know. There are quite a few animals that, under extreme and rare circumstances, will go through drastic changes.
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v102/n5/full/hdy20093a.html?foxtrotcallback=true
I am intrigued by the complexity of these chains though. not sure if this article will be of any help.

[NJDiscusGuy]

While this may sound interesting I totally disagree. I suspect that either you or your friend had made a mistake in the sexing of some of your discus.

[Ryan925]

You guys realize he posted this in 2015 right?

[brewmaster15]

You guys realize he posted this in 2015 right?:)

Hard to say here as I have never seen a case of Discus Changing Sex, though I have seen them fool many people into thinking they were a different sex by their behavior and physical traits.


I will note though that it is possible under circumstances for fish to develop both male and female sex traits. These cases are from chemical pollution....particularly its becoming a problem in rivers with sewer outflows. The Male fish are becoming female. The suspect is estrogen from humans. Hormones like estrogen can create male fish with female traits. This is known.


For reference...
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6436617/ns/nbc_nightly_news_with_brian_williams/t/male-fish-becoming-female/#.WbvLRBeQyAk

https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/11/14241948/intersex-fish-sewage-treatment-wastewater-hormones

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-fish-changing-sex-gender-chemicals-pollution-rivers-water-charles-tyler-fisheries-a7821086.html

Add to that there are many man made chemicals that act as hormones, even though they are not, these hormone mimics also affect organisms.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/food-additives-mimic-hormones/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenoestrogen


So though I am very skeptical that Discus can naturally change sexes, I am also very positive that if chemicals are involved in some way, Its highly possible.

hth,
al

[HappyFace]

I found this article about fish turning hermaphrodite due to birth control in the water.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/leftover-birth-control-pills-are-turning-us-fish-hermaphrodites-problem-could-affect-367816

[Adam S]

To clarify the swordtail point (made in 2015), female swords can grow small swords and get a slightly thicked anal fin later in life. Not sure if it has to do with chemicals, but it's the dominant female(s) who get them. You probably won't see this is tanks smaller than 75 gallons.

[donnacona]

FAKE NEWS !!!!
Stu