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PostalPenguin
05-31-2009, 12:59 AM
I am having difficulty sexing my tiger barbs. I have read that males are more colorful than females, have a red bar on their dorsal fin and have a red nose when breeding while females are more rounder than the males. However, I cant seem to tell the difference among mine. Does anyone have any pictures of a male and a female tiger barb that shows the differences? I have 7 of them so chances are I have at least one of each sex but I cant tell. Thanks!
smaug
05-31-2009, 01:07 AM
This is a male.He is about 5 yrs old.
14735
jaysee
05-31-2009, 04:39 AM
Male is first. They can be more difficult when they are small.
PostalPenguin
05-31-2009, 04:43 AM
Male is first. They can be more difficult when they are small.

Awesome thanks. I am having a tough time since they are small and all of them have the red line on their dorsal fin, just some have more of it than others. I guess I will have to wait for them to grow a bit. Right now the biggest is only 1.5" and the smallest is about an 1".
jaysee
05-31-2009, 04:46 AM
I think these will be bigger pictures.....The biggest differences are the nose and the tail. Males tales have much larger red srteaks on the top and bottom of the tail fin. Females tails are only slightly red at the top and bottom edges. And the dorsal fin too.

these are bigger
jaysee
05-31-2009, 04:50 AM
The last 4 I got were small and they (LFS) were busy, so in a hurry I thought I picked out 2 + 2...I got 4 females.

Smaug - Is that a petsmart fish, by chance?
smaug
05-31-2009, 02:05 PM
It is either a petco or a walmart fish.Its been a while I dont remember.
marksuttonjr
06-18-2009, 04:54 PM
Earlier today I had a big long responce typed up for this thread, and the power went out due to a storm just before I was ready to hit Submit Reply. I am gonna keep this one shorter since there is still a lot of thunder off in the distance and I am afraid I might lose it again.

Color is not always a good indication of sex. I have 1 female who colored up just as much as her male tank mates when I moved them to my tank from my girlfriends daughters tank. The best indication is the shape of the fish. Look at the pics already posted above. Notice how the female has a more rounded belly. Even when not ready to spawn females have a belly with more shape to it where the males remains to be flatter.