Re: [Killietalk] Sexing Aplocheilus lineatus

[Scott Davis <unclescott at prodigy_net>]

Hey Russ!

Where you shopping for the so-called regular lineatus
or the gold sport or "golden wonders", found in many
pet shops?

I was a little surprised by your characterization of
females as white. (It is funny what one's mind set
does to them, because I've always assumed that the
females are a paler version of the males.) Did a
google image search and sure enough, there was a quite
white female golden lineatus at:
http://badmanstropicalfish.com/gallery/misc/lineatus.html

The golden lineatus, a xanthic form of lineatus (the
black is missing) are a lot harder to sex than the
regular lineatus. For an account of their origin,
please check out http://nzka.killi.net/ 

With the regular lineatus, the females retain the
juvenile pattern, with the regular vertical bars. With
some killies, non-dominant males will also keep that
pattern for a while. It saves them a pummeling at the
hands (?) of the dominant male. This can also be found
among some other groups of fish (some cichlids and
rainbowfish, certainly not closely related to killies,
come to mind). If the fish looks stressed, be prepared
to separate her/ him or don't buy it.

http://www.networksplus.net/maxmush/aplocheilus_lineatus.html
(red lineatus, their habitat range is incorrect)
http://epiplatys.de/Aplocheilus/Apllineatus.htm

Here's my concern, the female pictured in "badman's"
site, strikes me as quite stressed. That may just be
the flash or some other effect of photographing the
fish. In one shot, she does show some gold in the curl
of her tail. (The 4-year old female golden lineatus
looking over my shoulder, at the moment, has a whitish
belly, but is golden hued over the rest of her body.)

Stressed fish tend to really fade. Some will show
black blotches and/or bars. I would really shy away
from purchasing such fish - or if I wanted to take the
risk, I would buy them, but separate them for a time.
I have done that, during quarantine, using 1/2 gallon
bowls, 2.5-gallon tanks, larger aquariums and even the
wide mouthed gallon pickle jars. With most killies -
and especially lineatus - securely and tightly cover
their quarters. (They were also the first killies I
lost as a newbie - to terminal dehydration.)

If those side bars tend to deter some male aggression,
I wonder if the absence of them encourages it?

If there are several young golden lineatus in the
shop, ask if you can "candle" the potential females.
Have the killies put into one of those plastic holding
boxes (or a bag) and hold it up to the light. Females
should show eggs. Killinuts commonly carry flashlights
and do that at shows, meetings and in homes. I don't
think I have ever taken a flashlight to a LFS with
that in mind, but one could ask them ahead of time
(before producing a flashlight from one's back pocket)
if they would mind. ;)

I would only buy females with color. Nothing with dark
stress colors would be purchased. I would also seek
females as larger or larger than the male.

Some "red" lineatus jumped out at us, when we dropped
by a shop, while vacationing a couple of months back.
(One of the marks of a terminally loony fish-head is
the tendency to carry an inch thick styro in the car,
even when on decidedly non-fish related drives.) Two
pairs of those lineatus follow us home. The males were
hard drivers and I separated all of them into
individual quarters very soon after acclimating them.
Almost immediately they also came down with velvet.
Despite the loss of one female, they snapped out of
that pretty quickly.

Still separately kept, the remaining female has
received more food and preferential care. She has
fattened up and is now a tad bigger than the boys.
They will be set up as a reverse trio. That is a
little rough on the males, but if they tend to show
aggression, it will be focused more at each other than
the female.

Have had good experiences group spawning lineatus
which were raised up together. Commonly , killies
raised together seem to have sorted out their pecking
order when young. (Lots of room, lots of shelter and
multiple spawning sites were available in that
20-gallon however.) That group thing is not a
possibility with many new purchases.

With the heat wave so many of us are enduring in the
American Midwest at the moment, it is lineatus
weather. (They thrive at 80 degrees F/ 27 C.) As soon
as I finish the post convention tank shuffle, both the
gold and red lineatus will be reunited with their
opposite numbers.

All the best! Hope this is of some use.

Scott
Park Forest, IL

--- RNPhoto at aol_com wrote:
> Hello,
>  
> I am a brand new Killie owner. I just recently
> purchased the brightest  male 
> and the whitest female (I thought) Aplocheilus
> lineatus from a local  store.  
> The male seemed to harass the female until it was
> afraid to eat and  die.  I 
> picked up another very pale white one that is being
> harassed  now.  It seems 
> they have all been males.  Is there a better way
> than  color to determine the 
> sex of this fish?
>  
> Thank you,
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