The male’s dorsal fin is black too, but with a yellow edge. How to tell if your african cichlids are male or female.
yellow lab cichlid
For certain species, of peacocks and haps, the colors can appear later in life.
How to tell if male or female yellow lab cichlid. It really just depends on the dominant male is dominant and aggressive enough to interfer with the other groups spawning. Sometimes a female's will be lighter, but that is not always true. You should normally go for the egg spot method whereby males have large yellow spots with black circular outlines on their anal fins.
As for mbunas, the dimorphisms show up earlier in life. Usually, you are going to be able to tell the difference just by spotting the biggest and most colorful ones. Once they reach around three or four inches males will turn bluish/grey with darker blue stripes while females will retain the yellow with brown stripes.
Like most male cichlids, a yellow lab has pointed dorsal and anal fins. As they originate in numerous coasts of lake malawi, they will develop a wide range of morphs respective to their area. Most malawi cichlids are dimorphic.
Yellow lab cichlids are stocky with an elongated body. Not all male yellow labs have them, however, so you need to look for other characteristics. For a successful breeding you need to strip the fish from its eggs.
First, the male digs a pit in the sand or claims ownership over a flat surface. A quick google search can tell you which is which. The male species grows to a length of five to six inches and the females are slightly smaller at four to five inches.
For a yellow lab cichlid, it takes 6 months to become fertile. The best companions can be other mbuna fish and malawi cichlid species such as yellow tail acei cichlid, blue dolphin cichlids, rusty cichlid, perlmutt, zebroids, etc. Under the pic in the link is a drop down.
Females on the other hand should have yellow dorsal (sometimes it is only lighter. At what age do yellow labs breed? The only for sure way to sex them is to vent them or watch them breed.
The dorsal fin has a vivid black strip with layers of white shade above and under. Unlike most cichlids, the female electric yellow is as brilliantly colored as the male. Those are some very incompatible fish in that tank.
If your cichlids are dimorphic, meaning that the males and the females both have different colors, look at your fish. If both are the same size, you have a male cichlid. Net your fish and hold him securely just above the water, making sure to support his back with the palm of your hand.
Any info from you guys will be a big help as usual. Differentiating between male and female yellow lab cichlids can be hard. I am very curious as to how you can tell the difference between male and female cichlids, because i have a pair of ice blue cichlids and i would like to know if they are in fact male/female or male/male.
Mouth brooders like mbuna female cichlid keep their eggs in their mouth until they hatch. The easiest is to identify a dominant male. Yellow lab cichlids breed very easily.
It is relatively straightforward to distinguish male from female yellow lab cichlids. Likewise, a male’s anal fins have light egg spots, which are altogether missing in females. A male yellow lab cichlid has a very noticeable large hole adjacent to the anal fin and a second hole that is so small that you might have a hard time noticing it.
After this is done, the male moves his fins in a seductive manner to attract a potential mate. Females have yellow ones without an egg spot. Close examination of the shape of the fish's genital papilla, visible near spawning time, is the most certain means of determining cichlid gender.
The males are usually bigger, more elongated, and when they are ready to breed, they are much brighter than females and turn slightly blueish. Through your magnifying glass and with the help of your light, look at the two spots just above the anal fin. Theres no way to know for sure if you did not witness the spawning first hand.
I have 2 extremely young oscars 1 yellow lab a gold fish and a common pleco in a 100 gallon. Fin color and egg spots the ventral and anal fins in males are jet black in color but pale yellow in females. Both sexes look similar, though males have faint grey vertical shapes on their sides whereas females do not.
Yellow labs are momomorphic which means there is no external signs to tell male or female so the only way to determine gender is through venting. On the other hand, these fins take rounder and blunter shapes in females. The male usually has a black line near its eye.
The body of the electric cichlid is a deep yellow color with black highlights on its fins. The males also display black anal and ventral fins and possess egg spots, whereas the females are yellow and show no egg spots. Those spots represent the anus and vent.
The reproduction process of yellow lab cichlids begins after 6 months of life. Colour is key as males are deeper, with yellow all over the body, including the belly. However, if you keep them with fellow yellow lab cichlids, it has to be in a ratio of 1 male to at least 2 females.
The female has two equally sized large holes. If both are different sizes, you have a female electric yellow cichlid. Another thing to notice on the males is that their anal and ventral fins are black.
Most types of african cichlids are sexually dimorphic, which means that males will appear different from females. Also, the thought to be dominant and subdominant males turned out to be confirmed females, for what we know, there may only be one male in the tank. If your yellow lab has no black stripe or very little then it is possibly a hybrid, since yellow labs should have the black dorsal stripe, whether they are male or female.
male and female yellow labs!
Female yellow lab
Yellow lab female, male in the background
Group of 10 male + female yellow lab cichlid (NOT FRY
Electric yellow lab cichlids YouTube