# Is this a female ram?



## AirPost (Oct 16, 2008)

I'm leaning towards a female because of the pinkish belly but not entirely sure because of the fins. I'm planning to get her/him a partner soon.

TIA.

















Also, my angelfish, Pikachu, has some light patches on it's side. Is this normal?


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

Yup, that's a lady ram. The belly is a give away, plus a male in that good of shape would have much longer dorsal and ventral fin extensions.

googled pic for a comparison: 









And though I am not a big angelfish fan, that looks like a very healthy fish and probably suffering from selective breeding- meaning it's a man made color variety and sometimes you get wacky side effects. I'm betting that's just the coloration of the fish and not a disease. Disease would occur in very definite places, not patches, in a healthy fish. Yours looks great.

GL!


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## AirPost (Oct 16, 2008)

Thanks, Six!

Now off to the LFS to get a male ram, some candlelight, romantic music and hope to see some results in a couple weeks.


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## TAB (Feb 7, 2009)

99% of the time the pink belly is a give away,but...

with how much inbreeding that has gone over the years. you can't really use color, or fins and be sure. you need to look right around thier sex organs. Its kind of hard to explian, let me does some looking for pics...

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=137945

about 3/4s down the page.


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

I agree. I was actually going to bring up the same point TAB. We're breeding a lot of wild traits out of rams including the ability for them to successfully raise fry. 

Whatever you do after breeding them, please don't select them for balloon shape! :3


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## freshfins (Oct 23, 2005)

It's a male. I agree that you can't go by the belly color anymore. The best way to tell is that the 3rd dorsal ray is extended above the rest and the blue speckles are around the black spot on the side of the fish rather than within the spot.


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## jschall (Apr 13, 2009)

Female ram:








Actually I guess "ram" refers strictly to a male, so there is no such thing!


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## Six (May 29, 2006)

You really can't tell with fins anymore- they're bred to have elongated fins... if this is a TR fish it's going to be hard to tell. I'll put $ on it being female. I guess he'll find out if his fish is or not soon enough.....


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