Mesoheros gephyrus females finally reveal themselves

Mesoheros gephyrus females finally reveal themselves I have eight Mesoheros gephyrus along with a male Mesoheros atromaculatus in a 165G tank. They were obtained at the same time and were purchased as wild caught specimens. Three years ago I got them as 1“ (2.5 cm) juveniles. They were such slow growers over that time but eventually have reached a size (8 to 10” / 20 to 25 cm) where they are showing some of the attractive coloration that I had seen in a few pictures on the internet. But all eight gephyrus looked virtually identical, other than having a bit of size difference. They have showed no interest in one another whatsoever and behave rather skittishly. When fed, they are very tentative, taking flight at the slightest provocation. I was always concerned that they might not have been getting enough food to promote good growth, but they looked to be in fine condition nevertheless. A few weeks ago, I put some pictures of my gephyrus on my Facebook page. I had seen what a proven male and female looked like at Rick Borstein’s place in Chicago about a year ago. It looked like mine were all males to me. All showed the same spangling on the flanks and face, the overall coloration was the same, and the finnage was very comparable amongst them, nothing at all like the extreme sexual dimorphism its congener, M. festae shows. Well, tonight, I observed that when the female becomes sexually active, changes occur. Her spangling decreased markedly, she took on a vertical striping (although faint at this point), her body color lightened, and her dorsal fin showed a uniform red shade. She is also smaller than the male for fish of the same age. And she is stockier, is showing a fuller belly and her ovipositor is beginning to show. Another very important distinction between the sexes surfaced when I put my first video out on Facebook on gephyrus. As observed from my previous video, Jo Eastwood​, my friend from Germany remarked that some possessed a black border along the trailing edge of the dorsal, in the soft rays, and some didn’ is no dark edging on the females, there is on the males. A very astute observation. Thank you Jo. But strange thing is, tonight she took a preference to the male atromaculatus, and not any of the stud male gephyrus in the tank. The atromaculatus acknowledged her by spreading his fins and posturing in front of her. And her fins were spread and she followed him about. What may have prompted the activity was a 50% water change I did yesterday. It looks initially that I have 4 of each sex. I will continue to monitor them.