male or female?

[broken poles]

Hi, I have a 6" snakeskin ( lets call it fish "A")that has spawned about 15-20 times with a female SS(fish "B") and then a month later switched partners and has spawned 4 times with another female ss(fish "C"). The B and
C fish make it obvious that they are laying eggs and I am not able to tell on fish A because the fins always cover the genital area. Fish A makes passes over the eggs but it goes at about twice the speed of the other fish. So far I have not had even one wriggler. My water is 75% RO and 25% tap. PH about 7.7 KH and GH usually are about 6 ppm Temp was 86 but I have dropped it down to 82 the last three spawns. The fish spawned on sunday evening and I put a cage around the eggs to keep the angels from stealing them and then on tue evening there were more eggs on the slate. Normally it is 5-10 days between spawns so two days seems unlikely for one fish? I do think I may have interrupted the sunday spawning when I came home from work and turned on the light. Can they hold back and spawn again that quick? Here are some pics. They were taken in the dark with just the tank light so I hope they are visible. Thanks

[Eddie]

Thats a hard one, its blunt like a females but have seen males just as blunt. :o The vent area is even harder in this fish because it is concave but where the tube protrudes it is convex. Really hard one to guess. If you watch them do runs, this fish doesn't drop any eggs?

[Chad Adams]

My vote is almost definately female. I personally have never seen a male
look like that.
Chad

[broken poles]

Eddie, I have only been able to witness the spawning a half dozen times or so and the problem is the ventrals cover everything so I can not see clearly as it does a pass. I also did not pay real close attention the first few months as I was just letting them do their thing :). It doesn't seem to leave eggs behind but with two of them going every which direction I can't be positive. The passes are not slow and deliberate like the female. They are twice as fast. A couple months ago I would have bet money this was a male but after 25+ spawns I am starting to wonder.
The tube does look a little different than the female. It almost seems wider at the tip. Does that seem right? Thanks

[Eddie]

Eddie, I have only been able to witness the spawning a half dozen times or so and the problem is the ventrals cover everything so I can not see clearly as it does a pass. I also did not pay real close attention the first few months as I was just letting them do their thing :). It doesn't seem to leave eggs behind but with two of them going every which direction I can't be positive. The passes are not slow and deliberate like the female. They are twice as fast. A couple months ago I would have bet money this was a male but after 25+ spawns I am starting to wonder.
The tube does look a little different than the female. It almost seems wider at the tip. Does that seem right? Thanks


Well, males are supposed to be more pointy at the tip and not as blunt but as I mentioned, have seen some HUNG males. lol :o

The male in my avatar.......like a pinky finger!


Eddie

[William Palumbo]

I am with Eddie. I have a Red Scribblet that is "hung" I watched them spawn and just knew I had two females again. But it was a true pair. What I did notice on the male, that was different than the female, tho both tubes were thick, the male's tube was angled pointing a bit to the front of the fish, where as the females just hung down...Bill

[Moon]

I am with Chad. I think it is a female.

[broken poles]

Thanks for your replies everyone.I went through my pics to look at the angle of the dangle but I am not sure if it points forward or not. These pics are not as good as the first batch but here they are. let me know if these help. (Yes my tank is scratched but I got it cheap)
The female is first:

[Eddie]

They both look like females in the second set of pictures but, you never know. :o

[jaykne]

I have one female and 5 males in my community tank, every male in there has spawned with her, and in my fish room have couple more pairs that have seen their tubes all the way down. I have seen some males that had thick breeding tubes but not that blunt, IMO I would say it is a female, I would bet on it.

[broken poles]

Thanks for your replies every one and I guess I will not worry about the eggs anymore. One good thing out of all this is that they do not eat ANY eggs until they are all white for a day. They were egg eaters until I caged the eggs a few times and now they just guard them like they are supposed too.
I guess I will wait a couple months till my stendker red scribbelt and brilliant come of age and hope one of them is a male.
This will also let me give all my attention to my first GBR spawn which should be free swimmers by tomorrow:).