How do you find out the gender of african cichlids?

Question

How do you find out the gender of african cichlids?

Answer 1

African Cichlids are hard to tell until they are about 6 month's old.  The male will start to turn yellow and then eventually brownish yellow.  The female will stay blue. and yes the spot's on the bottom fin is a dead give away, but they don't get those till adult hood.

Answer 2

The only sure way to determine the s*x of egg laying fish is to do what the experts call "venting" the fish.

You must remove the fish from the water (net it out of the tank) and turn it upside down (hold it very gently, they can be hurt easily) so you can examine the vent holes in the anal area.  Only do this over a bucket of tank water so if you drop the fish or it flips out of your hands, it will fall into the water in the bucket.  

Also, never handle a fish unless you have wet your hands thoroughly in tank water (dry hands, or anything dry that touches the fish, will damage the slime coating on your fish).  The slime coating is a natural barrier to bacteria and parasites that each fish produces.

You will see that the females will have a rounded vent (hole) and the males will have a tear-drop shaped vent.  If the fish are young, it will be very difficult to discern the difference in shapes.

The egg spots on the anal fins are not a sure way to identify males, I personally have males without the spots and females that have some spots.  These are mostly in the Malawi mbuna, not necessarily in the Tanganyikans.

A dominant male in a tank full of fish will have the most color, but other males present in that tank will take on the drab colors of the females to avoid being beaten up by the dominant fish.

In some species, notably the kribensis, the females have the most color and do the courting.  They also are the ones who choose which male to mate with.

Answer 3

there are many different african cichlids, you should find out what kind you have first, and then you can find out what gender it is.

Answer 4

the males tend to have spots on their bottom back fin. Most are the more colorful also, not all but most.