Hi,

A strange thing happened here.

I got three Odessa Barbs. When I saw them in the LFS, all three had a clearly female appearance: plain and not much red, just as they are shown in the image below. Since Odessa's are not very common, I got all three and asked LFS to try to get some more. Brought them home, put them into tank, and next morning a surprise: all three developed the beautiful bright red stripe, exactly as males should, according to the same picture.

Pictures of male and female Odessa's can be seen here.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_Di...09&js_enabled=0

Any idea what is going on here? Does PH affect barb's colors (my tank is 6.6, LFS' was 7.0, Odessa's are supposed to like more acidic water.)?

Is there another way to sex them? (I'm concerned that if the LFS gets some more this week, and they look like females, and I get them, I'll end up with a few more males, which is certainly not a good idea -- they might be conflicting a bit already).

LFS is unfortunately no help: they have no idea about barb sexing; and it is my first experience with barbs...

Thank you in advance

I read a few articles about this beautiful fish, and amazingly one of them had this to say...



The site is here.

My guess is water temp being higher at home than at the shop.

Thank you!!! Temperature *is higher* at home (82F vs 75F); in my case it took overnight for colors to show up. And yes, they are beautiful and seem to be friendly to others.

Unfortunately I still have no idea how to distinguish females in colder water...(that is if LFS can get some more...)

82F is a little high for barbs long term. Depending upon tankmates, I'd lower it to mid 70's if possible.

/jealous I can't gind them here

The females have a silvery body with a pinkish hue and a faint pink stripe along their lateral line. Their caudal fin is that same colour of pink with a large dark olive splotch. They also have black blotches near the caudal peduncle and pectoral fin.

The males are blackish-silver (with liberal amounts of a yellowish-green) and have a thick bright red stripe along the lateral line (extending from the head to the tail). That same yellowish-green appears on the dorsal fin. An iridescent bluish-gray appears on the fins on the lower portion of the body

HTH

I will once the tank "settles". My biggest fear is ick on clown loaches, so while the new fish is being added I'm running it at higher temp with anti-ick meds.



There is a place on the net that sells them for $1.99, if I cannot find females, I'll risk it. (3 males is not a good configuration: the bigger one chased the smaller ones away and swims with Danios; the smaller ones swim with clowns or by themselves.)




Thanks a lot, Wolf, this gives me something to go on.

If I may -- a similar question you are likely to know the answer to -- what is the significance if any of bright orange bottom fin in Giant Danios? I've been watching my group and noticed that the two with bright orange are doing most of the chasing.

Followup: in case Wolf or anyone else interested.

I got my LFS enthusiastic about Odessa's so he ordered 50. None of them showed convincing color and -- sorry to say -- Wolf's description did not help either. I suspect that it is impossible to determine sex unless colors show, and they never did in the LFS tank.

I gambled and took 4 largest (these were small: about 1.25") without any traces of red color. Within an hour in my tank they turned out to be 1 male and 3 females and (bingo!) putting them together with my larger males reduced the aggression to a tolerable level. They (almost entirely the males) are chasing each other and females still, but no fin damage or deaths anymore (one of the original three males ended up killed).

Question: anyone tried to keep similar sized barbs in the same tank? What would happen if Odessa's are mixed with Rosy Barbs? It should look good, but will they try to kill each other?

This post has been edited by mikev: Nov 26 2005, 05:31 AM