How to Identify Male and Female Livebearers by Pondguru

Hello I'm Richard from Tyne Valley Aquatics and in this video I'm going to show you the differences between male and females in the more commonly available live bearers. There's hundreds of species of live bearers that are available but the more common ones are quite easy to distinguish between male and female. Here's the differences. Fin underneath the fish, that one there, is the main way to tell the difference between male and female live bearers. We'll start with a really easy live bearer to tell the difference which is black chin live bearer. You notice that fin underneath, the anal fin, on the males it's elongated. It's actually called a gonopodium. On the females it's a totally different shape. That colorless fish there is a female. Notice how it's anal fin is like a wedge shape, thick triangular shape. There's one at the back. There's two females at the back, two males at the front. Fin underneath, totally Totally different on male and female. Here we've got some male guppies, notice the fin underneath the body, long and thin, different from the females. On the guppies the males are generally the much more pretty fish, have a hell of a lot more colour on than the females. There's a couple of female guppies, notice the fin underneath, not much colour on them, nowhere near as much as the males. With endlers or microplaties, species of live bearers, the males are the bonny ones, they are absolutely tiny, Compared to the females, see the males pursuing the female there? There's a few different types of endlers in this tank, but only one type of female. With swordtails, you can tell the difference by the fins underneath. There's a female there, big wedge-shaped fin. But also, the males develop a sword on the lower part of the tail. Hence the name, swordtails. These are a strange one, because females can actually turn into males. If they feel there's not enough males in the group, some of them will turn into males. Colouration on sword tails is pretty much the same between male and females, so the fins is the best way to tell. With platys, because the males and females are pretty much the same colour, you go by the anal fin again, simple way to tell. And the same is true with mollies, anal fin, totally different on males and females, see the white one in the middle of the screen there, that's a male, elongated fin underneath it, find a female, there that black one there, female, triangular wedge shaped fin. Moving on to something slightly more exotic. These are called Limia nigra fasciata. They're sort of live bearer because the males and females color-wise are pretty much the same. You just go by the anal fin again. There you go, that's a male. There's a female. Female's body's a bit fuller as well. That one's obviously got young inside it. And actually the body is also another way to tell the difference between male and female. Where's that female? There she is. The body is much Broader, much fuller, fatter than the males, not always the case, but on guppies, especially towards the anal fin, you tend to get a black patch, same with swordtails, platys, mollies, and that's actually the young development inside the fish. There you go, there's a guppy there, black one that's freaking out, it's got a black patch just underneath its belly towards its anal fin, that's actually the young inside the fish. These are female venus guppies, which is like a sort of endler. Tell by the colour, largely colourless. They're females. The fin underneath is wedge shaped and they've got black patches towards the back end of their bellies. That's the young inside them. In fact, there's a few of the young have looked like they've popped out there towards the back of the tank. That's it. Basically, pretty easy to tell with a lot of the common live bearers. The fin underneath the fish, the colour on many of the species. And also the black patch towards the back end of the belly on the females. Fairly easy, once you know those tips. Thanks for watching. Catch you next time.