Really late bloomer... or safely incognito

[CACAdmin]

Breeding mollies and platys, I have become used to on many occasions discovering some rather late blooming males. Now with my green sailfin lyretails, I have been quite frustrated in the lack of males and figured that by the time a mollie got to be 3 inches long from nose to tail tip that if it looked like a female, it was.

Well, I have been proven wrong. I have a bunch of young females in a tank with my largest male Green Sailfin Lyretail (in hopes he sires many broods). However, as these females grow, I need to move some of them out to avoid overcrowding (it's only a 25g tank). A couple of females had a huge growing spurt (reaching the 3 inch mark) and so I moved these females to the 70g. That was last week.

Tonight I had a look at them in the 70g and guess what? One of those big 'gals' turned out to be a late blooming male. :rolleyes: One tends to wonder if there were factors at play such as a large alpha male in that small tank... and the young male playing it safe by not showing his 'true colors' (or in this case his gonopodium).

Here's my 'new' male. Notice the more female shape (deeper bodied) despite the appearance of a gonopodium:

http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/jb_images/GS-late-bloomer.jpg

[GaryofMontreal]

That's one nice molly.
I find this late blooming thing with livebearers really intriguing. I've been getting lots of Xiphophorus nezahualcoyotl, as they are much easier to breed than to type out. Even in a 55 loaded with plants, I get one slender early blooming male, and all the other fish thicken up and look female. As time goes on, gonopodiums may appear, but swords don't. I keep trading away alpha males and watching the race to pop a sword with my supposed females. It's very neat.
In the next tank, my X alvarezi just sex out, grow swords and get on with it. I can have lots of sworded males in there - no problem.

[CACAdmin]

Yes, it definitely in intriguing as it seems to vary from species to species and also varies within species. Although there are lots of male mollies in the 70g there are no male green sailfins (with the exception of this current late-bloomer). The alpha male in that tank is the velifera.

I could just move some more females to the 70g and see what happens, I suppose. On the other hand, I could try pulling my large male from that smaller tank just to see if any more late-bloomers appear in there.

[Melody]

The alpha male theory has been studied on various Livebearers and it appears to be accepted as fact now. Interestingly, the alpha males start breeding earlier and have a shorter lifespan.

[firestorm]

Good luck with them Jay. I just hate it when I find what I thought to be a female, is actually a male :rolleyes:

[CACAdmin]

Thanks firestorm. However, in this case, for once I am happy to get males in that I have been getting all females (or so I thought:rolleyes: ).

[firestorm]

Well it's a good thing then. When you have african cichlids it's usually not a good thing :rolleyes:

[CACAdmin]

Update: The late bloomer has become the largest molly in the tank (even surpassing the Velifera). Here he is with a large spotted female. You'll notice that he has developed short petticoats and his lyre is now long and trailing.

http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/jb_images/GSL-M-Sp-GSL-F.jpg

[GaryofMontreal]

In the research that shows early bloomers living shorter lives, has anyone looked at whether single males appearing early in small aquarium sized groups live equally short lives? If you have one 'early' male, not competing with subordinate, late bloomers, will he live a short life compared to if you purchase a late bloomer male out of a group?

[Noctame]

Has anyone tried keeping a batch of could be males in tanks on their own (even sponge aerated betta 2gallons) to see if the male traits spout up when they are solo?

[CACAdmin]

In the research that shows early bloomers living shorter lives, has anyone looked at whether single males appearing early in small aquarium sized groups live equally short lives? If you have one 'early' male, not competing with subordinate, late bloomers, will he live a short life compared to if you purchase a late bloomer male out of a group?
Interesting question, Gary. It would have been fun to try and see when I was only getting maybe one male out of each drop. Of course, I'd have had to have enough tanks to experiment with so it wouldn't really have been feasible. I have kept one of those males and although he is an alpha male, he lives with competition on a daily basis (from his father and offspring). Maybe someone has tried this scenario (intentionally or otherwise) and has made some observations. I'll see if I can find any references in some of the research papers.

Has anyone tried keeping a batch of could be males in tanks on their own (even sponge aerated betta 2gallons) to see if the male traits spout up when they are solo?
I'm not sure if anyone has tried raising mollies solo to observe the age of sexual maturity, but I'll have a look around in research articles. It would be a fun experiment but tanks would have to be larger than 2g as mollies require lots of tank space (especially sailfins) and too small a tank would be stressful. Mollies often don't begin to mature sexually until they are 1.5-2 in. or more. So, I'll have to leave that experiment to someone else.

[Noctame]

Hrm. If 6 20 Gallon tanks were split lengthwise with blacked out sides, would that give a molly 'test group' enough swim space. A 30" Long ofc.

[CACAdmin]

Good idea but I'm not sure if divided tanks would work or not. In that they would be sharing the same water, I suspect they would sense the other male in the tank (even if they couldn't see him).

Not an option here anyways for an experiment, I live in one room and already have set up at the moment, 5 tanks(70g, 29g, 25g, 20g, 5g), a 20g plastic tub, (plus a nano-pond on the balcony). No money or room for more tanks. :no: I'll let someone who has the room tackle this experiment. Any volunteers? :wink:

[catinthehat]

Jay, remember the trio of golddust mollies I won off you in the auction. All 3 turned out to be males even though I was sure I received 2 females. No worries because the 2 free ones you through in look like females......BTW, they are all doing great.......

[CACAdmin]

Late bloomers, too, eh?:frown: (That's the trouble with livebearers... you can't always tell until they are mature adults :rolleyes: ) I sure hope the extras are females. If not, I can grow out and send you an adult female. Let me know. Glad to hear they are doing well.

[catinthehat]

Thanks for the offer ....I'm sure at least one will end up a female...But then again!!!!!!!!!lol

[CACAdmin]

I have another really late bloomer in the tank. Beatiful lyre and long petticoats but a very small dorsal. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking that this guy (already more than 3.5 inches in length) was going to be stuck looking more like a typical female (thick bodied with a small dorsal). However, suddenly in the past few weeks his dorsal fin has started to grow. I've tried to get a picture with it raised but so far to no avail. I wonder if it will eventually achieve full height (he is still growing).

[CACAdmin]

Update on this latest "Late Bloomer". Just recently his dorsal has begun to grow considerably. My hypothesis with regard to this is that the growth may have been in response new competition. At the beginning of September I removed (males and females) from the tank. Only one other large male and a few large brooder females remained along with a fair size batch of juvies. It would appear that as these juvies are becoming young adults (and competition) this has triggered more growth (totally unscientific theory of course). Here are some pics.

Blurry photo but the only one I could get
of him displaying for the ladies.
http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/jb_images/2010-11-GSL-M-1.jpg


Sorry about the dirty glass.
He has a habit of splashing water right out of the tank
every time I feed the fish
and I forgot to clean it up after feeding tonight.
http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/jb_images/2010-11-GSL-M-2.jpg


In a hurry to chase off the competition.
http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/jb_images/2010-11-GSL-M-3.jpg


The spotted female on the left was the object
of most of his attentions tonight
(dirty glass again. :frown: )
http://www.canadianaquariumconnection.com/jb_images/2010-11-GSL-M-4.jpg

[Xiph]

He is beautiful!

Is this your ninety gallon?

[CACAdmin]

I wish...lol... no space for a 90. This is the 70g.

[Namor]

Jay, he's a beaut!

That second photo is awesome. :yes:

[CACAdmin]

That photo was where I think he was challenging the human with the camera... probably annoyed that I was disturbing his courting ritual.:wink:

[sailfinja]

I have an extra male Nezzy which I wanted to develope. I moved him away from the tank with the alpha male into a larger community tank. He still remains the same. I don't know if it's becaues he perceives the male red swords to be competition or because there are no females of his species in the tank. At any rate his sword still only remains a stub.

[CACAdmin]

Interesting... have you considererd introducing a female of two to that tank and see what happens?