determine sex of clown loaches

[jman0303]

what is the sure way to determine the sex of your clown loache?thank u if u can help

[Emma Turner]

Mature females (8" +) are much deeper bodied and will have a fuller abdominal area. There is some talk of tail shapes and hook endings to the tail meaning one sex or the other, but I don't think that is accurate. All my males have a much larger tail size overall compared to the females.

Recently it came to light that mature males may show some form of breeding tubercles on the head area from time to time, although I have never seen these on any of my 40+ clown loaches.

Emma

[LoachOrgy]

emma, doesn't sexual maturity occur after a few or more years? so really you wouldn't be able to sex the clowns until after you have had them quite a while. right now my larger loach is about 5" and it is starting to show signs of the fin claw shape as mentioned in the almanac but i don't know if that would determine it. i can't get em to hold still long enough to get a good look at them.

[Emma Turner]

Most of my clown loaches are more than 10 years old, some being 14 or more. Martin has a good comparison picture somewhere showing a male and female, and I must put together one myself as Marge and Stripes (12" and 11") show a huge difference in body depth, girth and tail size. Marge is probably a good 5" or so deep.

Emma

[LoachOrgy]

that would be really cool. i can see how marge is large and bulky as you say. and i remember the woman who has the small dog( mean big loach) that she feeds with her hands. that big boy is long narrow and solid. if that is correct, i can definitely see the difference. but as of now, i can't tell from any of my loaches. one of them is two years old and the other 3 are one year old. the new ones are 2" long.

[Emma Turner]

I think you can safely say that if you have two large mature clown loaches (over 8 or 9" in length) that are of the same length as each other and are of the same age, if there is a noticeable difference in body depth, girth and tail size, you have one of each sex.

Emma

[Martin Thoene]

That photograph Emma mentioned is stored on the 2cah.com server which is down long-term at present, otherwize I would have posted it.

Martin.