Can anyone help sex my Bolivian rams? Also how long does it take a pair to form?

[LinearParadox]

Can anyone help sexing my Bolivian rams?

here is the first one, his tail fin has no trailers.

Here’s the second one, his tail fin also has no trailers.

Here’s the third one, the tail fin has trailers. It’s also the biggest.

 

[Guyb93]

To me the second photo looks male 3rd looks female not 100% though more experienced members should be able to tell you for sure , time scale on pairing is never set in stone , they may never pair they might pair up really fast , if you do get a pair the third might be at risk of being bullied though

 

[Essjay]

The vents are visible on both fish, though the fin is obstructing the view in the last photo.

The vents are the best way to tell the gender. A female's vent is wide and almost flat ended; a male's vent is narrow and pointed.

I took these photos several years ago when the bolivian rams I had then were in the middle of spawning so the female's vent is much more pronounced but they give an idea of the difference.


I bought 2 bolivian rams and chose the two which looked the most different. They turned out to be two males. A few months later I was in a shop which had mature bolivians which had clealy visible vents so I bought two females on the understanding I could take some fish back to the shop. As soon as the females went in the tank, the males attacked each other so I had to move one into my quarantine tank. The remaining male spent the next few days first with one female, then the other. Then he paired up with one and they both attacked the second female, so she went into the quarantine tank with the male. Exactly 7 days later (both Saturdays) I took the two in the quarantine tank to the shop and got home to find the pair I'd kept had spawned.
Mine took less than a week to pair up and 7 days to spawn.

 

[Essjay]

The rams in the photos do need a bit of feeding up before they are likely to pair up, though.