gender changing?????

biokid101

i have a female?? bumblebee Platy and i bought her as female i think she had one long fin under her pointing down..i noticed yesterday that she/he had a gonopodium..now im in shock because i never heard that platies can change genders..will it be able to mate with the other female Platy i have???

kitten_penang

The female's back fin under where her anus would be (behind the two pectoral fins) will have a fin that is fanned out...The male's fin in that spot is tucked back and you will usually see the gonopodium (penis-like organ) which is just a long straight thing that points backwards. A female with her fin tucked up can look very like a male, but when she relaxes and hovers in the water she will almost always let her fin fan out. It is difficult to sex livebreeders while they are swimming.
The male sexual organs are also some of the last characteristics to develop, so juveniles suddenly switching from female to male is normal. It's not wise to buy platies or other livebreeders based on sex until they are fully grown.

zof

Same thing happened to me, I had what I thought were two females and one male and just last week I notice my large female was all the sudden male. I don't think you can officially call platies female until they give birth, otherwise they just might be a male waiting to develop.

biokid101

yea i know my blue spotted female is a female cause she gave birt h and the bumbleebee Platy never even had a bigger gravid spot but idk if its her fin tucked back cause it looks alot like a gonopodium and the other fins on the side dont appear..does someone have a pic of a male and female bumblee Platy????? just to show

Oldman47

I do not have any pictures of platies that are clear enough but all poeciliid fish are sexed the same way. The only distinguishing feature worth noting is the shape of the anal fin although some male poeciliids have more color or longer tails than their female counterparts. This is a female of one species.


This is a male of the same species.


Another species of poeciliid
A male.


and a female

eileen

Oldman47, Those are really cute livebearers. Are they wild type? Do they stay small like endlers or do they get as big as regular guppies? I like how the male has a stripe pattern on the side of his body.

I have Bumblebee platies also and they do take awhile to develop. I had all female and 1 turned out to develop into a male after having it for 4 months. Some will be late developing male. The have the female wider body shape then develop a gonopodium later. This can happen to swordtails also as the Platy and the Swordtail can interbreed because they are from the same family type.

biokid101

oh those r nice pics oldman47..its changing everyday! its just lookin more like a gonopodium so i listed it as male for now

Oldman47

The pictures are Xenophallus umbratilis, golden teddies, in the first pair of pictures. The second set of pictures are Heterandria formosa, called least killies, although they are not killies at all. Both are wild type poeciliids Eileen. They are not especially hard to find if you hang out in fish club auctions like I do but are near impossible to find in a fish shop. They are both quite small fish3.
Biokid, the Platy cannot change sex, it is determined in Xiphophorus genetically, unlike some cichlids. Some do develop their sex apparatus later in life than others though.

biokid101

well i do think that it is just growing it but it had the same under stuff as my female blue spotted and i know thats female cuz it gave birth

biokid101

wellunfortunatly it died yesterday..it got lost in the tank and it was in between a rlly small plant...its ok ill just buy only female ones but idk about platies cause im getting back into guppies again.and im gonna use the new 20 gallon tank im quarantining now for the adult gups and or platies and mollies if i wanna and the 10 and 5 gallon for fry :0i will put all the big fry and adult fish into the 20 gal next week