Male vs. Female True Red Terror Cichlid (Festae)

[AlbertA11]

I think it would be great to keep information all in one place on sexing red terrors while they are in the in-between stage of adolescence and adulthood. When young festae are nearly impossibly to sex because they look the same up until around the 5-7 inch mark when they change color. I bought a festae at about the 4 inch mark and was told it was a female but now believe it was a male. If more experienced keepers could confirm that I would appreciate it greatly.

To start this thread off with ways to tell a festae is female is coloration in the dorsal fin. Often females will have dark coloration on part of their dorsal fin which helps many to identify it is a female.
In addition, males color down over time and do not get the true red colors like the females do.

 

[duanes]

The dark area in the dorsal is usually an indication of it being female, as a a lack of iridescent spots
Your pics are not really close, and in most the dorsal is not open enough to tell, I edited a couple to try and make it easier.


Here are a couple females I had.

now compare to the dorsal color and spotting, also compare height of head profiles

 

[Andy woods cichlids uk]

Another good way to sex Festae, check there unpaired fins. Females have far less freckles. Normally at a very young age males have noticeably more.

 

[duanes]

I will add one caveat to the dark dorsal comment,
When during brood care, males of the tribe Heroini sometimes develop traits similar to females. A good example in the post by oshp132 in the breeding section called My Festae Pair, in the photos the male has adapted brood care colors which include a dark dorsal.
In my tanks this was obvious in another pair of the tribe Heroini, Herichthys carpintis. When not in brood care, males normally look like this.

But during brood care males and females are quite similar.

Note how the male (on the right) has developed a dark section in the posterior of the dorsal.
One other color deviation, happens when you have a female without a male festae in the tank.
In this case the females sometimes develop a generic less bright coloration
below female festae without a male present.

now the same female, when the male was put back in the tank

This phenom is not restricted to festae
below a normal Nandopsis haitiensus female (another representative of the tribe Heroini

Now the same female when the male is removed to another tank

She has adapted a more alpha coloration, and even changes shape a bit.
Andy also makes a great point about freckling, which is a common gender difference in many Heroine cichlids, below is H nicaruguense as an example
first a male lots of freckling

now a female, much less.