Firehead vieja sexing

[Stanzzzz7]

I have a male and he doesn't have the blue eyes. But he does have the blockhead, rise on the dorsal fin, and his body shape is just different than the last one I had. Last one I had was shaped like a football. This one I have now is longer, much bigger head, just looks much more "manly" body shape.

To be honest I had never noticed the blue eyes on my own fish it was just something that I had heard about.
I have just had a look back at some of my veija and noticed my males all seem to have blue surrounding the eye.

Male guttulatus



Male melanura





Female melanura

 

[ragin_cajun]

I'm gonna snap some pics and so we can compare notes. Problem is, I don't know the sex of most of my fish. But, I'll get some good pics of eye color and body shape and we'll see.

I've heard the blue eyes on synspilum before, and on Argentea (which are impossible to sex). But I didn't know it applied to all Vieja.

 

[dan518]

My male biffa has blue eyes, don't think my male zonatus did though

 

[ragin_cajun]

My male biffa has blue eyes, don't think my male zonatus did though

Great news! Because I have 3 Zonatus, and I really really hope one of those is male--they all have gold eyes.

My Bifa's are both female I think based on shape of their head, they have gold eyes.

My "Synspilum" and Melanurus both have, I think, slightly blue eyes....bluish.

One of my Argentea has smokey grey eyes, sometimes gold, never really blue.

 

[ragin_cajun]

I've been watching for this a while now, and I really think that if a male gets blue eyes, it's well after he has a hump on his head. At least mine have been that way so far.

And I think Sajica have blue eyes, too.

 

[Stanzzzz7]

Ragin,You have some really nice fish.

 

[VALKYRIE88]

What about this one, it's 4 YRS old apparently. I want to be 100% sure I'm getting a female

 

[VALKYRIE88]

 

[Stanzzzz7]

It has the blue eyes and a well built head.
I would expect it to have a bigger head at 4 years old but my guess is its a sub dominate male.

 

[ragin_cajun]

Ragin,You have some really nice fish.

Thanks Stan.

What about this one, it's 4 YRS old apparently. I want to be 100% sure I'm getting a female

I wouldn't be too sure that's a female. If I just HAD to make a guess, I'd guess male. Nice big looking fins, hump on the head. It's hard to say, though. These fish are hard to sex, especially from a picture over the Internet.