Looks like a happy boy to me
This photo clearly shows the blue spangles around the humeral spot with none inside - this is much easier to see when fish are displaying brightly as this fish is
Cheers very much alto, I wasn't sure if the spangles around the spot at the bottom were encroaching enough to be a female. They're very interesting fish and have really captured my interest, sounds like the have quite complex social systems too.
Unfortunately, I discovered that said fish had jumped out of his tank last night
I'm livid! I couldn't understand at first as one of the things that drew me to GBR's was that they are not known as jumpers. I know theoretically they are more than capable of jumping, but haven't read too many reports of it happening. I think I should have been more careful either way. I just got to the fish too late, it was still wet but obviously dead. I hastily checked for ammonia spike and other things (temp/nitrites etc) but everything was as it should be and I had done a 50% WC the day before.
Then I thought, perhaps it was some particularly loud fireworks. Sounds crazy I know, but I live in a city centre flat and there were 2 or 3 seriously loud booms around midnight that shook the flat. I found the fish at around 00:30. May not be the case, but I could imagine if the fish was startled near the surface it's knee-jerk reaction would be to bolt, in any direction. The only thing in the tank was the GBR, 1 guppy and 3 amano shrimp - none of which he bothered with at all.
Do you have a picture of the tank? also tank dimensions?
For what it's worth, here you go - tank is around 30ish litres
Thanks a lot for your help - will look into fitting a lid. I think ultimately a bigger aquarium would be a good idea, maybe I'll stop before I do anything else with GBRs and be patient until I get something a bit bigger
booo!