# Electric Blue Cichild Ram, Sex/Gender?



## Whiteeagle2016 (27 Jul 2020)

Hi all.

  I'm looking for some help to find if my ram are Male or Female...

To be honest I can't find any difference between them ..as they look the same for me.

Please check attached pictures and thank you in advance for any comments or help 

AJ


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## Gill (27 Jul 2020)

They alll look like they have elongated anal fins, so going to say all males. Unless you have seen any of them with an ovisposter egg tube.


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## Whiteeagle2016 (27 Jul 2020)

Hi Gill and thank you for your reply. 

  I haven't seen any egg tubes, Just thought there will be at least one female but in this case will have to find some females but this wont be an easy job.


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## Gill (27 Jul 2020)

Whiteeagle2016 said:


> Hi Gill and thank you for your reply.
> 
> I haven't seen any egg tubes, Just thought there will be at least one female but in this case will have to find some females but this wont be an easy job.


Yeah, I have the same issue with mine, they are all males and not interested in the standard female rams. 
Mine are the orange headed short body, and pricey at £20 each. So has been hard to find anymore at this quality.

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk


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## Nick72 (27 Jul 2020)

I would have said all female.

It's much easier to tell with GBR, but each of their anal fins fails to progress into line with the caudal fin.

The anal fins are also rounded and not pointed like male GBR.

Lastly the body shape looks rounder which I would relate to female in GBR.


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## Whiteeagle2016 (28 Jul 2020)

Hi. I'm a bit concerned now  so all them are male of female?


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## alto (28 Jul 2020)

The pictured fish look to be somewhat short bodied (not unusual to see a spectrum of “short body” in some groups of rams, I don’t know if this is due to this aspect being non uniform in some breeding lines or if a “short body” ram has been crossed with a “normal body” ram etc)

With electric blues, behaviour is the best indicator of male/female

While some EB males have longer finnage, some are less pronounced

With “normal body” EB’s, males are often larger than females of same age, though a subordinate male may also be slower in growth (so don’t rush to judgement with young fish)

How long have you had these fish?
Have they grown much since purchase?

ETA when purchasing a group of EB rams, select a size range from smaller to larger, and also skip the most/least aggressive in the display tank if you’re intending to keep as a group 
(IME this color variant tends to be less aggressive than wild type coloring - which have an advantage as they are able to communicate via the bar pattern - and others, eg, Holland red, gold, German blue etc)

Note that any of the “short body” ram variants are shorter lived than their “normal body” counterparts, and face more health challenges due to the compression of internal organs etc


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## Whiteeagle2016 (30 Jul 2020)

Hi Alto and thank you for your reply and information. 

I bought the whole tank with 5 electric blue about 5 months ago and they only grown a little bit , I been trying to get in touch with the seller to gest some age info but without success ,about 2 weeks ago I lost one EB for no reason one morning the fish was dark blue and dead...   To be honest I visited about 5 different Aquarium shops and none of them had any ram for sale . It could ba much easier to compare if I see them in the shop)


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## Ian61 (27 Mar 2021)

My vote would be all female


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