sex determination- a. cacatoides

[aspen]

i found this note about sex determination in a. cacatoides at the krib:

'Mike.........There's good news and bad news! The bad first.........the so-called triple red strains usually, like guppies, don't have a pattern of throwing 100% triple red young....the probable % of triple red male may run from only 10% up to as strong as the particular strain is......maybe 80%. If your male is already breeding then his colors and color patterns are probably 95% set. If the amount of red is not to your liking then wait for some of his "puppies" to grow up and keep the ones with the most red. Next problem.............a combination of high temp (75-80+) with a high pH (7.5+) will cause the % of males to be 90%(it's happened to
me)........conversly, with lower pH and temps the ratio of females will
increase.

Mike'

so it would seem to me, that if you want a decent mix of females and males, a ph slightly below 7.5, and a temp of 75 deg would be nice. does this agree with others' experiences with this fish? i would like anyone who has raised these fish, and recorded their temps and parms, and also noted the male:female ratio to chime in, if possible.

hth, rick

p.s., for more info, try http://www.thekrib.com/Apisto/

 

[farm41]

I had a couple of spawns from my trio of cacs in the 60g display tank: 78F and Ph 6.8. There was a pair of nannacara in there too, so not too many survivors, but the ones that did survive were all males but one. The 1 female fooled me into thinking it was a male until one day it turned yellow.

I think temp is the most important.

 

[Jason]

At the temperature 75F I had 100% females.
I did not measure ph.
Jason

 

[Neil]

IME there are more factors that are at play in sex determination than temp and pH. However, I have always found that a little higher temp than 75, combined with a lower pH is a good combination.

 

[R-S]

Temp 79F, pH 7.4, at hatching point and temp 79F, pH 7.8 at free swimming stage, got 25 females and 2 males.

Doesn't seem to fit Mike's prediction. What else would you consider prime factors, Neil? What about maturity of the parents? My results came from first spawn...

 

[Neil]

What else would you consider prime factors, Neil?

Age of the fish, first spawn or not, tankmates, other water chemistry issues (cond. tannins, etc)
I would try 6.5pH @ 80 dgrees. I think that you will have better results.
Neil