HOW TO SEX YOUR ANGELFISH

I'll like to thank Lisa for the opportunity to post this topic.I I hope you will all be able to learn from it at some stage. I know of a few people on this forum that will give their right leg to find out how I sex my Angels. It has taken me years of experience and there's me going to try and explain in all to you in this thread. Don't get me wrong, I will, but it will take a bit of time and patents. You will not learn over it night. It will come with time and study.

First of all before I begin I ask you all not to reply to this post, but make your own post/topic in this thread by using 'NEW TOPIC' bar at the bottom.They shall all be answered. By myself and others. So please all join in.

HOW TO SEX YOUR ANGELFISH

This topic is being written over a period of time so if you find it incomplete please come back later to read the rest

There are other ways of sexing Angels, you could wait until they lay eggs but who says there not two females. Ok you could wait for the eggs to hatch. Again Ok. But how long have the fish taken to reach this far. You could check their Papilla. But how old do they have to be to see this. My way is simple, I have been using it for years and it has never let me down. I have even sold my babies as males or females and no one has ever said I was wrong. So what’s the trick, how do I do it? To start with you may need a lot of patience and time. It’s not the sort of thing you will be able to pick up and learn just by reading this. I’ll do my best for you and try to explain.

First and for most you need to be able to see your fish side on especially if you are using photograph. The reason behind this is because the light can play tricks on your eyes. It gives you light and dark shadows, which you will find plays on your imagination. So remember side on just as the picture below.


Now we have to look at the section of the fish from behind the nose to the bottom of the dorsal fin.


What we are trying to do is seeing if it is just one continuous line. No humps or bumps. It does not matter if it is flat or curved. If there are any humps or bumps don’t worry it just makes it more awkward to tell. As long as we are looking between the two points, nose/fin.

No marks for the next artwork. It’s to try and explain what I mean.


As I said not my drawings are not very brilliant.

The 3rd line being a bit bumpy but it is still a continuous line between A & B.

One continuous line is:-
No turning the corner, so to speak.
It’s the same arc.
It’s the same angle.
I’m sure you know what I mean.

Well the good news is that if it is one continuous line you have a FEMALE.

Confused, well don’t worry just yet all will be revealed.

When young all angels are seen as a female, but it is possible to sex an Angel at a very young age. Once a male, always a male. So how do we tell. It is no longer a continuous line we see. If you were to draw a line from the nose and a line from the fin, they will not meet on the same path. So in fact you could say:-
The line has turned the corner.
There are now 2 arcs.
They are both at different angels.

Here is a drawing to help show what I mean.


I can here some of saying that picture 2 and 4 are both continuous lines.
Wrong. This is where the hard part can come in and where the keen eye is definitely needed. All the lines you see in this drawing are in fact made up of 2 lines in each. So you see it’s not that simple. If all angels where like the pictures 1 and 3, there would not be a problem, would there? But there not are they. I admit myself that some angels are very, very hard to tell apart and I must say to sex an angel 100% will only come by experience.

One tip I have that may help you and that is to take a photo of your fish, enlarge it as much as you can and draw lines on it, as I have done in the photo of a young male, at the end of this post.

This is another drawing this time a male. See where the bend, arc, 2 lines meet.


Ok now for the punch line which I hope Rob will be able to explain this better than me. I have only ever seen this once and it really did throw me out when I sex my Angels. That is a Nuchal Hump. When I saw this I could not tell whether there was one continuous line or 2. I was cob smacked. So yes there are some angels you can not sex. From what I understand but can not confirm is that those with the Nuchal Hump are males. May be may be not.

I think I have said all there is to know about sexing your Angels. If I find I have missed anything out I shall add it on later. I dare say someone will say it does not work but it works for me and there’s proof in the pudding so to speak. I wish you all the success I had and hope you all find this all useful. I shall be including a few photos below with the lines drawn on to show you male and female. They won’t be my photo’s as I no longer keep them (sob – sob) I hope the owners don’t mind me using them. But as they are on this sight I see why not. Please feel free to ask any questions you have by posting another topic in the thread.

A MALE
You can see that the 2 line are very distinctive. May not always be as easy as this one to see.



A FEMALE
Here we can see that it is a continuous line between the nose and the fin. (No bending or Turning)