auratus cichlid sex change?

[mike dunagan]

try to vent

 

[tunerX]

I just noticed that one of my female auratus' has just darkened up, not as much as the male, but she has some nice blue and black.

It is definitely a female because she is working on her 5th brood in 5 months. I have about 40 Auratus now in my 120XH, and things are getting crowded. I cannot catch them because all of the rock work. I'll definitely catch them when I start to tear down my 120 this week.

 

[mike dunagan]

good luck, those little buggers are hard to catch!

 

[merc123]

I'm glad someone else had that problem. Mine turned black about a month ago and I got nervous. I knew it was a female because she's held 3 times and I've stripped her all 3 times.

Mine is almost completely black.

 

[groovitudedude]

Yeah, I woke up one morning, and I thought mine had a disease or something. Did some research, etc. Auratus are supposed to do this, and a lot of them eventually become completely black on the bottom.