New Keyhole Cichlids

[christophercanary]

Just bought 3 Keyhole cichlids, two are an inch and one is 1.5 inch. Does anyone know how to vent these to tell the sexes? I'll try to get some pictures, I just moved tank décor around a little so they are a little spooked at the moment.

 

[lloyd378]

At that size I'm not sure you could accurately (100%) vent any fish. Are there other visual ways to distinguish sex?

 

[christophercanary]

Everything I read says that it's really to hard to tell physical characteristics of sex besides slightly more pronounced finnage

 

[dwarfpike]

Like a lot of CA/SA, the finnage can be more of a dominance trait than a sex trait. I could never tell on my keyholes until I saw which one was laying the eggs.

 

[christophercanary]

Here is a video, my lighting sucks though.

https://youtu.be/1FswYWXv2ys

 

[lloyd378]

Do you need a light? I have some older t8 you could have ... What size tank

 

[Madness]

vent is the only way, and doing so will have to wait until they are about 5" or larger

 

[christophercanary]

Yeah I could use a light Lloyd, it's a 40 gallon long (48in), And darn Madness I was afraid of that. It appears that two of them have taken a liking for each other as they can be spotted swimming together at times. Although they can sometimes be found gathering amongst each other. Does anyone know how fast these guys grow? It would be cool if they packed some size, some of tetras are bigger than them. They also can change colors dramatically when startled, I think they do it to camouflage. Here are some pics of the tank, they are camera shy though.

 

[christophercanary]

Here is a better video

https://youtu.be/TmeD2vymRLs

 

[Hiney1]

Where did you purchase the keyholes? or has anyone seen any at a LFS?

 

[christophercanary]

I found these at the fish emporium in Puyallup. They were in a tank that said buy two get one half price. I think they were priced at $3.99 so all together I paid like $10 for the three of them.

 

[Hiney1]

I found these at the fish emporium in Puyallup. They were in a tank that said buy two get one half price. I think they were priced at $3.99 so all together I paid like $10 for the three of them.

Awesome! Thank you.

 

[Livebearer]

Believe it or not, I got mine from Petco in Kirkland! $5.99 each at 3". These are really nice with the single key pattern and are now 4" but are tough to sex! I should set them up for a spawn session though. They are my favorite dwarf type too!