female bellus angel changing to male ?

[skeetemup]

i recently picked up my second bellus angel female with the hopes of one of them changing into a male i don't even know if this will work? but my lfs says it could happen 50/50 but its possible that a third one would be necessary. has anyone ever tried this and had success with it. any input on this would be appreciated. thanks

[mark97r6]

I was looking into this a while back and was told that a trio would give better results. Though i still dont think that it is guaranteed.

It is supposed to take about a month for the change to be completed.
Like i said this is only what i was told, good luck, keep us posted if they change and some pics would be nice as i am still trying to find my first Bellus after 3months!

HTH
Mark

[achillesheel]

three would give it a better chance but the most likely outcome would be the death of one or two of them. if they can establish a hierchy without killing each other the change should take place. i have heard reports though of males reverting back to female form even in the presence of females. bottom line is nothing is 100% in this. in a 125, assuming death doesnt occur( it "should" be big enough) the change will likely occur but please do keep us updated. males are so difficult to find healthy so if creating them by establishing this hierchy in captivity can be done regularly, this may lead to healthy ones being more available.

[skeetemup]

thanks for the replies i'm on the list for a third female , but hopefully i can do it with just the two and ye even the female are hard to come by it took me 7 months just to get those 2 my lfs gets them in spirts some times 7 & 8 at a time but they are so sought after they barley make it out of the bag before someone is buying the. i remember back in the winter that just past we had a snow storm so the shipment was picked up from the airport like 10 hrs late and the boxes where ice cold and the shipment had 4 bellus females 3 made it but where in critical conditions and a lady came in the store and took all three of them. i'm not sure if they made it but i wouldn't have bought them in the shape they where in so high demand yes. good luck in your journey to get one and i'll post some pic's of the 2 and keep everyone posted on how everything is going . check my gallery out i'll get them there as soon as i can

[skeetemup]

after 3 day of one bellus in a containment cup i finally let the 2 get a closer look at each other so far so good no fighting i managed to get a couple of shots of them together check out my gallery too see them

[mark97r6]

Nice pics, are these in your reef or fish only tank? I dont think their should be any probs, females are supposed to be pretty calm and placid around each other! And plenty of rockwork in their, if one changes do you still intend to add a third?

Good luck
Mark

[skeetemup]

thats my reef tank in the making 125g still have a lot of work to get it stocked waiting on crosshatch trigger pair when they come i'll upgrade to a 265g but that can take as long as a couple of years . so far so good its been a couple of hours and they have already started hanging close too each other and they have taken over the home of my niger trigger so we'll see how that will go over come bed time if i could get the one of these to change into a male yes i will get a third and a fourth and just put those into my 72g bowfront and see if i could do it again . its a real shortage on males and to me they look as good as the females and i have lots of friends that would love to get there hands on a male bellus

[skeetemup]

just a little update on the 2 female bellus they are doing great no fighting from what i've seen swimming together like they were sisters will update in a couple of days on the progress

[skeetemup]

just an update on the 2 female bellus. i guess the honeymoon is over dominance is starting to settle in i see a little aggresion among the two watching closely to make sure theres no real injury caused fighting going on might have to seperate if it gets to bad but for now the boat is being rocked just a little bit .

[achillesheel]

well this is a good thing if u want one to turn masculine. whoever gains dominace should start to turn male. how exciting. goodluck

[GorillaReefer]

No way their gonna get along. IMO

[skeetemup]

well i guess its a good thing if they don't end up killing each other they are in the same tank but one it in a containment bubble that i made shes been in there for a week just to see how they will do just by seeing each other. i plan on letting her go tonight and just watch them close so that they don't really hurt one another . i'll update tomorrow cause its gonna be a long night just keeping an eye on them.

[skeetemup]

i just wanted to give an update on the female bellus after 2months no change has occured but you can see which one is the dominant one . they fight on occasion but for the most part they get along .then on 10\3\05 my lfs called me and told me they had 6 of them come in and they would hold them until i could get in and pick the one i wanted. so i went to check them out . i wanted to pick up all of them but i knew that wouldn't work so i stayed and watched all of them for about 6 hrs. i feed them and they all had pretty good appetites but one of them attacked the food like it was no tommorow. so that was the one i picked up. i got her home and i knew that just dropping her in would not be a good idea so i put her in a home made bottle protector so that they could see her and get started on seeing her float around the tank. as soon as she was seen by the more dominant one you could tell that she was not going to take over so i left her in there for a day and a half and i released her . i wouldn't say they were fighting it seems like they are establishing a pecking order and right now it is a beautiful thing they are swimming in groups and they tolerate each other . will post some pics later . and i almost forgot when i picked up my third female bellus i also picked up my 3 inch female cross hatch trigger so it was almost like hitting the lottery.

[mark97r6]

nice to hear a follow up.
Keep us posted and some pics would be great.

Mark

[toonces]

man, those bellus are awesome.

did you get them at roozen? i saw that they had a bunch in a few weeks ago. i almost got one myself.

[zemuron114]

how much do they usually run? I take it males are more expensive???

[tanglovers]

Bump Any Updates?

[waterfaller1]

Coming along to see the pics. I love my Bellus.:cool: