I'm trying to sex these badis

From what the pic shows, I agree. The male appears to have longer fins and is more colorful.

The female on the far left looks pretty odd compared to the other two though.

Actually, I think it's a safe bet that the one in the middle is a male. I'm not too sure about the one on the right.

Just a guess; they look a little young.

Error: In that case, it could be 2 males and a female(the weird one on the far left).


After all, the other two show blue and red tones, this one is just brown with striping.

I'm pretty sure that's the case. I just took a long, hard look at that pic. The two on the right I'm almost certain are male. The brown one appears to be female.

I had a pair of these a while ago, and the female had no color whatsoever. Cool fish...it's too bad that they rarely take flake. If they did they'd probably be a bit more popular.

Sorry to go off topic, but is the fish in your avatar xiphophorus montezumae? Some of the 'Ivory' form will be arriving at my door some time next week.

My avatar is actually Xiphophorus nezahualcoyotl. I do have the X. montezuma 'Rio Gallinas' (the mottled ones) as well as the standard blue-green X. montezumae.

Since I can remember, swordtails have been my favorite fish, so I try to keep and breed as many species/races as possible. Most livebearers, in fact, I love.

The X. nezhualcoyotl seems to be a little more difficult to keep and breed, in my experience. The fry have a nasty tendency to just decide to stop eating after months of success with flake and daphnia and other foods. Out of the last batch my late female dropped, there's something like a trio left. All of the other fish in the tank do fine, just not them. It's very frustrating.

THanks guys! I really appreciate the help you guys provided. Yesterday I noticed two of my badis turn SUPER dark and start messing around with each other using the back of their fins to touch one another. Is this a sign? They weren't biting one another. When i looked a little bit closer, they lost colors and swam away. Darn. O wells. I will watch these fellas and note their actions. Thanks again.