When can I tell the sex of my blue phantom im getting tomorrow

[KirstensFishyFriends]

Please any advice is welcome

[bekateen]

Hi @KirstensFishyFriends,

Welcome to PlanetCatfish!

How big is your new blue phantom? If it's only a few inches long, you'll need to wait a while for it to mature before sexing it reliably.

Good luck with it.

Question: You said in another post that you're new. Do you have much experience with plecos?

Cheers, Eric

[Baardman]

Welcome!! Like Eric said a mature fish is much easier to sex

[MarcW]

I have had a few of this species, and apart from mature males reliable sexing can be difficult.

As I'm not sure on the size of fish you are getting tomorrow, I'll let you know my experiences, firstly when i have kept a group, as is common with lots of species, there appears to be an alpha male, who has better developed odontodes. Distinguishing any of the others, males lower down the pecking order and possible females can be a tricky task.

I have been raising a group of 6 which 'hatched' from eggs in September 2016, only in the past week have I noticed the first sexual differences, one, is obviously a male and has begun to grow significant odontodes, the other 5 all look the same! These fish are now all roughly 5 inches TL, give or take half an inch.

As with any new fish the priority should be to get it settled and feeding well, I'd avoid meaty foods, start with slices or chunks of zucchini, and/or sweet potato, just rinse them to remove any dirt/dust, then put them in the tank raw, weighed down with a fork or similar, and leave overnight. Don't be disheartened if it doesn't appear to eat for a while, just keep replacing the food each night and it should start eating within a week or so. Once it's eating you can start to introduce different foods, in particular I'd recommend the Soilent Green or Igapo Explorer Repashy gel foods.

To make it feel comfortable, provide plenty of hiding spots, mine have never been interested in caves until they want to spawn, there is no harm in providing some caves, but I'd recommend rocky overhangs, something like a piece of slate on top of a couple stones/rocks.

Good luck!

[KirstensFishyFriends]

Hey all, he or she is only around 2.5 inches long, I am new to plecos, i had some in the past and they died, my fault, but I now know, I did the most research I could leading up to today, got him or her proper foods, got my temp right, everything i needed to fix.

[KirstensFishyFriends]

I have a small bamboo cave in there. He lives to spend time in it
I'm thinking male but still way to young to sex. As hes only 2.5 jnches.nkt growing much

[MarcW]

Good to hear it's settled in well. In my experience they are slow growers, at least in captivity, I'd guess it's be a couple years before you could take a guess at the sex. I've not kept them singily before, so I'm not sure if that'd impact ability to sex them.

I'm thinking males might need a bit of competition to encourage the development of large odontodes?

Good luck!