How to Sex your angels!!

[silver dollars]

I know, as soon as you read the title you don't believe me... well then u r wrong. I was reading an Artice from one of my TFH magezines on angels. So for those people who have been frusterated about how to sex them, Here it is*thumbsups !!

Some of the most common methods to tell are: looking at the forehead, the ventral fins, body shape, the degree of Horizontalness of the belly, and the distance between the ventral fins and the anal fin. The ventral fins are carried strait down in males and are shfted slightly foward in females. The males look quite slim, and looking head on, have there ventral midline taperd sharply to a knife-edge along the belly. Females, when looking head-on, are fuller. This can be seen better after heavy feeding. The profile from the mouth to the base of the anal fin, is straighter in males, but it has a pronounced break along the ventral fins and is more horizontal along the bellys in females.The distance between the ventral fins and the anal fin is shorter in males and visibly longer in females.

Where there you have it, you can now thank me!!! LOL!!*DRUMMER*

 

[Cichlid-Man]

I know, as soon as you read the title you don't believe me... well then u r wrong. I was reading an Artice from one of my TFH magezines on angels. So for those people who have been frusterated about how to sex them, Here it is*thumbsups !!

Some of the most common methods to tell are: looking at the forehead, the ventral fins, body shape, the degree of Horizontalness of the belly, and the distance between the ventral fins and the anal fin. The ventral fins are carried strait down in males and are shfted slightly foward in females. The males look quite slim, and looking head on, have there ventral midline taperd sharply to a knife-edge along the belly. Females, when looking head-on, are fuller. This can be seen better after heavy feeding. The profile from the mouth to the base of the anal fin, is straighter in males, but it has a pronounced break along the ventral fins and is more horizontal along the bellys in females.The distance between the ventral fins and the anal fin is shorter in males and visibly longer in females.

Where there you have it, you can now thank me!!! LOL!!*DRUMMER*

That is of course you run across the perfect angels. None with corrupted bloodlines, or ones that are stunted in growth, or ones with birth/general defects. Fish are like fingerprints, in general the same, but in detail every one is very different.

While very good points, and true in perfect angels the only sure fire way is to see them lay.

 

[silver dollars]

Yeah that is true what u said matt, but would this also count for Marbled???

 

[straitjacket]

It's true for any color variety of angel.

While these are all methods that may have worked for some either singly or combined with other methods none are 100%.

In fact this part of the article made little sense to me:

Females, when looking head-on, are fuller. This can be seen better after heavy feeding.

With this logic any heavily fed male would look like a female.
I find it hard to find angels without defects - kinked fins, etc. Out of my 7 angels 4 of them have kinks or improper form in the ventral fins (alone), making sexing by the curve or shape of the ventrals impossible and invalid.
6 of them have bent rays in the dorsal, 1 in the caudal. Absolutely not a single one of them "perfect".
You can see some very fine examples of males and females that would not be properly identified by most or any of these methods on Aquabid or The Angelfish Forum.

Watching them lay or venting would be the only accurate sexing method, as it is in other cichlids where both males and females look nearly identical.

 

[TheFool]

I've seen plenty of angels spawn, and I couldn't sex them without that. I think that articles is nice in theory, a little far fetched in practicality .... (like most in tfh, I am amazed it still exists)

 

[angelmom]

To prove the theary is a little off here are my two angels. I know for a fact they are male and female. (They are a breading pair). I know which one is what only because of other ways of telling. It's not so easy to tell by looking, most articles I have read have said there are ways but for the most part watch them laying eggs is the easiest.

Can you tell which one is which just by looking at them. I can't.

If you want other pictures I can get them for you when I get home.

 

[silver dollars]

The silverish one is the female and the one that looks like a koi is the male, i have the same breeding pair who layed about 400 eggs yesterday!!*BOUNCINGS

 

[Mahamotorworks]

I dont think you can.....

Maybe it is just me, I dont think there is a 100% accurate way to sex angelfish. Just to show what I am talking about here are some quotes and links that they came from.

Angelfish
Angelfish are nearly impossible to sex accurately
From
Sexing Fish

Sexing
Sexing Angelfish can be difficult
From
angelfish

Sexing Angels. Lots of luck sexing young angels. Except for color (which has nothing to do with sex), they all look alike
From
How to care for your angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare, with pictures

I am interested to see if you can I have 5 angels and my bro has 1 I will get some good photos of them and let you sex them. We will see what you come up with. Let me know if you want to do take the challenge.

MAHA

 

[angelmom]

The silverish one is the female and the one that looks like a koi is the male, i have the same breeding pair who layed about 400 eggs yesterday!!*BOUNCINGS

NOPE

Actually my silver one is the male and the Marble one is my female. Not so easy just by looking at them.