Ram Fish Mating - Day 2
Like 1 Dislike 0 Published on 16 Sep 2010
I had a problem determining gender of these two young rams (Mikrogeophagus ramirezi). The one with the pink belly ("Pinky") I thought was a female, because of the red belly (even though it can be misleading) and bluish glitter on the big black spot. I got her a male, the cockiest, the most aggressive ram with the most vivid colors that I could find in the pet-shop ("Punk"). But when they got together, they miraculously changed roles! Pinky became noticeably darker, and Punk, even after a day in the new tank, is still not regaining the former colorful glory. Pinky was at first chasing Punk around, but after a couple of hours - they got together just fine, occasionally picking on other fishes in the tank. However, I am still not sure about gender of either of them!
On this footage, Punk is paler and has more prominent first three dorsal fin rays than Pinky - which has a reddish belly and more vivid colors.
Eventually it turned out that (as initially supposed) Pinky is a female and Punk is a male and they started mating the very next day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksE32Rf2dQw