What gender? and why lack of color?

[travie]

I'm wondering why my male ram is not as colorful as my female ram. Is it possible that he is still a juvenile and hasn't colored up yet? And can anyone confirm that he is in fact a male? I circled the ram in question in the second photo. Thank you.

[LosC]

He certainly looks alot smaller than the other Ram, it probably is because he's still young. If you give him live foods and a varied diet he should color up faster. One of my Rams isn't colorful even though it is the same size as another Ram that is colorful.

[Tolley]

what temperature is your tank at? Rams like warmer temps. like 83

[Incredulous_Ed]

85 is a goo dtemp to keep them at. Give him some time to color up. They are almost full grown before they get their fanastic colors.

[Fishalicious]

The stripes are a cichlids way of showing they are stressed or not feeling well... I don't know if the other Ram is more dominant and chasing it away a lot or not...in that case it is showing it is subdominant.

From the above foto's I can't see the finnage so can't tell you unfortunately if it's male or female.... sorry

They already can color up to their full color at 3-4 months - check the sexing rams thread in dwarf cichlids... there are also foto's of rams at different ages