Tropical Fish Forums

[don clark]

I have 2 f chrysotus collected from the local river, they are about 2", one has orange fins, alittle bigger and more aggressive, the other is a solid light gold with bright specks, am icorrect in assuming the larger one is a male? also looking to get a pair of flagfish from the river, but don't know what a female looks like?
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don clark

[UncleWillie]

You're pretty accurate in your assumptions. Both sexes have the golden flecks on their flanks. The males are larger and will have the red spotting on its body. If you can (and have the tank space) try to get a few more fish and take home some females. I had a tank with two males and three females and aggression wasn't too bad. If I could do it over again, I would have upped the females to 5 or 6.

Flagfish are pretty easy to determine sex. Like the golden topminnows female flagfish will have the golden flecks on their sides. But they are much less colorful than the males (the male will have the red rows of dots), and the females have a dark spot on the rear portion of the dorsal fin. A good search of male and female flagfish should help.

I've kept both these species separate and together. I threw a male flagfish and two females into an outdoor tub with one male and two female golden topminnows two springs ago. I left the tub sit til August and have 12 additional flagfish and 8 additional goldens. They are fun to keep, and easy to breed (which is nice since they usually only live about 2-3 years, and you can keep your own captive bred line going).