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Has anyone ever seen a female Scarlet Badis?

Hi all,

<"Sounds familiar">.

cheers Darrel
Has anyone ever got to the bottom of how so many males end up in the trade with zero females? Capture of only attractively coloured individuals? Not sure this can be the case as dull coloured males are imported frequently.

Cheers
 
Hi all,
Has anyone ever got to the bottom of how so many males end up in the trade with zero females?
Not as a far as I know. It was suggested that the sex ratio, in the wild, is very heavily skewed towards males. I was always dubious, but this would seem to <"definitely refute that">.

Because they are Percoid fish sex determination could potentially be <"temperature controlled">, which would allow a breeder to strongly skew the sex ratio and an (even more unlikely) possibility would be that they may be <"protandrous sequential hermaphrodites">.
Capture of only attractively coloured individuals?
My guess is that they (collectors or exporters?) can tell males from females.

cheers Darrel
 
It’s known that pH skews the m/f ratio in Sciaenochromis ahli, temperature also skew the ratio in some species. I have no idea about badis
 
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I designed an experiment for a school to demonstrate this (years ago), for a science teacher friend
 
Has anyone ever got to the bottom of how so many males end up in the trade with zero females? Capture of only attractively coloured individuals? Not sure this can be the case as dull coloured males are imported frequently.

Cheers
I've observed a fairly even distribution of males and females in the batches of fry I've raised. If anything there's probably slightly more females than males.
One thing I did notice was that you can tell the sexes apart earlier than I expected and males will begin to show colour when they're smaller than I've usually seen them in shops.
I have no idea what proportion of those exported from india are wild caught as opposed to farmed but I reached out to some people in India to try and learn more about them in support of my breeding attempts and they informed me that these can be found naturally in HUGE numbers and very high population densities in the wild. I think it's entirely possible that many we see in the shops have been wild caught and that females are just released to maintain the population in areas they're harvested from. This would also potentially explain the often very poor condition of shop specimens and their general refusal to feed on anything other than live food. It's not remotely difficult to get captive bred fry to accept dried decapsulated brine shrimp eggs as a staple diet.
 
I've heard that the males are too aggressive with the females during transport and the few that are catched dies.
I can tell you that with large numbers of them in the same tank the males behaviour is quite different. They largely abandon efforts to establish and defend a territory and pester the females far more than they do other males.
The opposite was true when I've put only two males in a tank. They would establish pretty clearly defined territories and defend them aggressively against the other male.
I've witnessed the actual act of mating several times now and it's not unusual for females to display a black spot in the exact same place on their body for several weeks after they have mated. It almost looks like a little black saddle that eventually fades away. I think that some of the chromatophores they use to display their black stripes during mating are just getting stuck "on" as a side effect of the reproductive act but I'm now also pretty certain that this effect serves some kind of purpose in the wild - perhaps indicating to other males that they have already mated or are no longer carrying eggs. It's always in the exact same place.
I did consider that it could be some kind of physical injury or bruising that occurs during mating but I've also seen it develop in females immediately after a very gentle mating embrace cushioned in the roots of a floating plant.
 
If you do bring some Opheodrys vernalis and Lepidobatrachus llanensis with you and we can do a swap! You have access to so many cool species that we can't get over here.
Ahah! Yes, these snakes are pretty cute and I never saw that frog, kinda derp! Love it.
 
A few months ago, I bought 4 "female" scarlet badis, plus a lovely coloured up male. Two of them started to get faint red specs on the sides, so I guess they are sub-dominate males. The other two remained drab grey. I moved them to a separate tank a couple of months ago to see if they would colour up. They are still grey. Hopefully, they are females.
IMG_5380.jpg
IMG_5388.jpg

(I might have taken the picture of the same fish twice, so hard to get close up photos)
 
A few months ago, I bought 4 "female" scarlet badis, plus a lovely coloured up male. Two of them started to get faint red specs on the sides, so I guess they are sub-dominate males. The other two remained drab grey. I moved them to a separate tank a couple of months ago to see if they would colour up. They are still grey. Hopefully, they are females.
View attachment 199554View attachment 199555
(I might have taken the picture of the same fish twice, so hard to get close up photos)
The first one looks female to me but that second picture looks like it could turn out to be a male. If you have males then one of the surest ways to tell would be to put it in a small tank with a male for temporary observation. Females will intermittently flash dark stripes when the males are courting them . I've never seen one that doesn't. If you didn't observe this but rather it remained uniformly greyish/transparent then you would probably be looking at another subdominant male.
Another way you might be able to tell is by feeding more heavily for a little while. In my experience within only a few days of heavy feeding the females will become very noticeably round and fat even from a young age whereas the males don't.
 
Just a point of clarification on the term 'sub dominant males' too - I use this term myself out of habit but it's probably not really accurate. I have maybe 50+ males right now and not one of them is grey or totally lacking in colour like we tend to see in the shops. This is either a consequence of poor health, stress and/or starvation.
The actual difference between dominant and sub dominant males is that dominant males will develop a certain amount of black colouration around their heads and eyes and perhaps marginally brighter colours but all mature males will display plenty of red and blue if they are in good health.
If anyone has a colourless badis that they've had for a while, that's eating well, and has grown while in your care, or isn't particularly small, then you can probably be pretty certain it's a female. I will try and update this thread with some more photos that show the differences better.
 
I can tell you that with large numbers of them in the same tank the males behaviour is quite different. They largely abandon efforts to establish and defend a territory and pester the females far more than they do other males.
At roughly what stocking density do they become less territorial? I have a 5, 15, and 20 long to play with for either a colony or quarantine, and am curious if there are intermediate levels of stocking that are more dangerous due to conflict.

The reason for my question is that I can acquire a number of small D. tigris whose genders aren’t yet obvious. Trying to guess how many I should get in order to find a female, and what can safely be stocked in each size.

Cheers
 
At roughly what stocking density do they become less territorial? I have a 5, 15, and 20 long to play with for either a colony or quarantine, and am curious if there are intermediate levels of stocking that are more dangerous due to conflict.

The reason for my question is that I can acquire a number of small D. tigris whose genders aren’t yet obvious. Trying to guess how many I should get in order to find a female, and what can safely be stocked in each size.

Cheers
I'm not too sure about at exactly what density their aggression becomes significantly 'diluted' but I also have no experience with D.tigris. I have kept a dario species that was sold to me as D. hysignon 'melon red badis' and it was much more aggressive in general than I have experienced D. dario to be and the same could potentially true for D. tigris but @rdk1402 breeds these and might be able to give you a better answer.
 
Thanks. @rdk1402 recommends keeping D. tigris at very low density (one per ~7.5 gallons). I know of a local breeder who keeps a colony of 5 pairs in a 10 gallon. I just don’t know about the middle. For example, holding 6 in a 15 gallon to sex them out.

@louis_last If you had to answer the question for D. dario, what would you say? I understand it’s not the same situation.
 
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Thanks. @rdk1402 recommends keeping D. tigris at very low density (one per ~7.5 gallons). I know of a local breeder who keeps a colony of 5 pairs in a 10 gallon. I just don’t know about the middle. For example, holding 6 in a 15 gallon to sex them out.

@louis_last If you had to answer the question for D. dario, what would you say? I understand it’s not the same situation.
I think the best answer I can give for D. dario is that If the males are ABLE to effectively defend a territory then they will do so quite aggressively. I think hardscape may play a role as well as stocking density. At high densities the males will still occasionally chase one another a little or display to one another but they can't focus on or bully a single fish because they are so easily distracted by females or other males coming into their field of view.
I've often seen it advised that plenty of hardscape which breaks up lines of sight and allows them to establish independent territories helps to reduce aggression but in my experience I think the opposite may be true. I'm very far from being any sort of expert though, I was just lucky to find a female and I've been learning as I go.
The best I can do is tell you that three males in a 10 gallon tank were extremely aggressive to one another but that 15 mature males in a ten gallon demonstrate very little aggression to one another. You will know very quickly if you're stocking them at a problematic density as their territorial aggression when it manifests is not subtle and the males are more than capable of damaging one another if there's no intervention when it becomes a problem.
 
Hey Ben,

As I mentioned on a different forum ;) I don't conduct experiments with Dario tigris. They just happen to sit on top of the food chain in most of my tanks. I keep a minimal amount of fish (mostly Dario) per tank in order to preserve populations of crustaceans and nematodes in the same tank.

I believe the observation given by Louis could very well be applicable to Dario tigris.

I once had a scape (in a 1 meter tank) that had a very clear boundary in the middle, along with two males and one female. The males each owned one of the sides of the tank, perhaps due to the clear boundary in the middle, and disputes were very, very frequent. Spawning took place in this setup. But I hated staring at the tank because of the disputes.

So I changed the scape to an island, see picture below, and added a third male (yes, for comparison, I should not have done that). The four oftentimes group together; see picture below. I never notice any disputes ...and thus far, never noticed any breeding either.

The other remark by Louis regarding Dario dario is one that I have read before about this fish; they aggregate in groups in the wild. Perhaps the same is true for tigris. Aggregate under conditions a,b,c, settle territories under conditions, x,b,z, etc. If I'd live a thousand years, I would probably have visited Myanmar by now and observe tigris in the wild.

Most of my tanks only have a solitary male. I seriously wonder if this is the right thing to do from the fish's perspective.

island-3.jpg


IMG_20220203_175406156.jpg


For breeding, I currently keep 1 male and 1 female in a 60cm tank.

Louis talked about a visible spot on the female. I notice the same thing on the dorsal side. Look at the white mark. It is not something permanent.

dario-blacktiger.jpg
 
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