# Sexing Scarlet Badis



## Green Leaf Aquariums (Feb 26, 2007)

Nice fish Pedro, I wish I could help on this one

-O


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

All males.

Females have no stripes whatsoever.

**I have owned females before and have had experience in getting female looking males. Those look like the female looking males. It's tricky :/


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## milalic (Aug 25, 2005)

Ebichua said:


> All males.
> 
> Females have no stripes whatsoever.
> 
> **I have owned females before and have had experience in getting female looking males. Those look like the female looking males. It's tricky :/


I have read where it says that some females exhibit red lines as well, but that they are opaque. I can not find the link at this moment.


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## waterfaller1 (Jul 5, 2006)

All males. Females can exhibit a few faint lines, but they do not have the irridesence, or the blue, or the high shaped top fin.


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

milalic said:


> I have read where it says that some females exhibit red lines as well, but that they are opaque. I can not find the link at this moment.


I have read that too, so I know what you mean. But that quote was misleading, especially when I ended up buying more males than I wanted. Females CAN show lines (rarely) but it's incredibly faint, which is what that article did not really say how faint... The lines on females are hardly noticeable unless you actually try to look for them.


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## plakat (Mar 2, 2008)

They are all looking like males to me also. I saw with my fry that the males suppressed their coloring longer if they were with the dad, or another big male, which might be the case for some of the lesser colored individuals you have.


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## milalic (Aug 25, 2005)

Anyone has a good looking picture of a female?


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## Ebichua (May 13, 2008)

Okay, before anyone starts flaming me for this picture...

I know you said you wanted a GOOD picture of a female but they're incredibly shy and I remember taking a picture of my female before. This is by far, not a "good" picture but I think it shows a general idea of what people should expect from a female scarlet badis.

It is NOT scarlet at all. It's rather gray and dull with no color. 

Hopefully, someone can offer a better picture than mine. But here is to start :fish:


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## waterfaller1 (Jul 5, 2006)

Here are some good ones..

http://www.future-digital.com/aquarium_info/info_freshwater_tropical_fish/dario_dario_7.html


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## dapellegrini (Oct 29, 2006)

Ya you have a load of males there... here is one of my females that exhibited faint lines while still young:



















some others:


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## saltura (Aug 23, 2006)

Here are some pics...


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## milalic (Aug 25, 2005)

Dan,

Some of them have faint lines, I do not have pictures of all fish. I will get some more pictures.

Also, apart from faint or no lines, is there any other differences like in the fins, body shape? 

Some of the fish seem dull to me resembling your fourth picture.

All,

Thanks for the photos.

I will take more photos tomorrow and post.


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## dapellegrini (Oct 29, 2006)

The young ones can be very hard to tell - as they mature the females will go white/yellowish with very little markings. Younger females can have some markings like the photos I posted, but I have never seen pronounced stripes on them before like in your photos.

Their body shape seems the same - IME the females end up a little bigger than the males in the long run.


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## plakat (Mar 2, 2008)

Odd my females are always smaller than the males. They will have occasional dark bars but never have I seen pronounced red bars. Body shape is the same in both fish. The only thing I remember and I can't really make a comparison right now between my male and female but the male will get elongated pectoral fins with the leading edge making little trails. Unfortunately this took a while on my males to develop.


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## ZID ZULANDER (Apr 15, 2008)

I would look at both color and dorsal fin structure. If the dorsal fin is more round than I would say female. If its more pointed or has alot of color male.


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## milalic (Aug 25, 2005)

plakat said:


> Odd my females are always smaller than the males. They will have occasional dark bars but never have I seen pronounced red bars. Body shape is the same in both fish. The only thing I remember and I can't really make a comparison right now between my male and female but the male will get elongated pectoral fins with the leading edge making little trails. Unfortunately this took a while on my males to develop.


Since I have a lot of them, I will keep looking at them...I think there are females, but I will see if I grow out these and then offer them as females if they really are. 

I just notice that around 5 of the fish has like part of the body white with some weird lines. I will try to catch a photo of them and posted.

It seems very hard from everyone,s account to sex them. The only common thing so far I can take from the post is that they barely have bars and have a duller color.


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## plakat (Mar 2, 2008)

I think you have to get used to sexing them then it comes quick. The problem is that they all look like females for quite a while when young and males don't all develop colors at the same rate. The fact that some females have coloring doesn't help either.

If you could separate the ones you think are female it might help with sexing them and with pictures.

I'll take a couple pics tomorrow if I can (I just put my female back with my male) so they should be quite active. Unless they mate tonight...


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## A Hill (Jul 25, 2005)

From what it seems from what I've found the females are easiest to find when they're ready to mate and look like ping pong balls.

I think you may have sent me 3 female badis badis with my other fish, time will tell though.

-Andrew


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## Clare12345 (Dec 20, 2008)

I have 1 female now, juvenile, I also had a baby male but he just died. He looked super healthy yesterday and trying to breed with the female and all of a sudden later dead. Anyway, my female (I know because they male was trying to breed) DOES have red stripes. No color on any fins, but she does have about 4 or 5 tiny red vertical stripes. Also she is a little shimmery and blue. But faint colors, especially compared with how the male was coloring up. For a while they looked the same.
 Need another male.


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