Sex Sphaerichthys vaillanti

[Yo-han]

Although I'm mainly a plant enthousiast, I've always loved the colors on this fish. Till now I only had schooling fish and an algae crew in my tank. But I could get these for a very nice price and they were colorful from the minute they arrived at the lfs I work. So I took the 4 most beautiful females and two small males. Placed them in my 400L and they even showed more brilliant colors. Almost like the pictures on google:


Didn't had time this weekend to take pictures but I noticed one of the males showed some vertical bars today, very pale, a little like this but even less pronounced:


I'll try to make pictures this week. But do males have these vertical stripes sometimes, or do I've 5 females?

 

[Yo-han]

For anyone reading this with the same question: Found out by now that all 6 were females. Any vertical stripe means female (the one in the picture above as well) so I bought 3 others of which 2 are 100% male. And to show off a little (no award winning pictures but nonetheless):
Female in neutral mood:

Female with war paint, chasing the other (bigger) female away:

Female with male:

 

[Michael W]

Very good looking S. Vaillantis! My LFS gets them in quite often but I just don't have the space to setup a tank for 'em which is a shame.

 

[Yo-han]

Yeah, they need quite some space. The alpha female is already dominating half of the 400L tank. No way you can keep them in an open scape like iwagumi neither btw. She really lives up to the name Samurai gourami😛