How can you tell if a fish is male or female?

Question

I have 2 goldfish, a black molly, and a platy.... if it helps

Answer 1

For the Mollies and Platys.
Perhaps the easiest category of fish to sex are the livebearing fish. Males are usually smaller and more colorful than the females. They also possess an external sexual organ, the gonopodium, which makes it easy to differentiate males from the females.

The gonopodium is a modified anal fin which is used to fertilize eggs. In the male the anal fin is rod shaped, while the female has a traditional fan shaped anal fin.

For the Goldfish it is very hard except that during breeding season the males get white pimples on the leading edges of their gills.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

The goldfish are hard to tell when it is not breeding season, but in the platys and mollies, there is a very easy way. On their underside there is a pair of fins and a smaller fin. If this fin is rounded and stays flaired out most of the time, it is a female, if the fin is pointed like a tiny tube and stays folded to the body a lot of the time, it is a male, this tube is how the male mates with the female.

Answer 3

With platys and mollies, if you look at the anal fin (the one on the belly, just in front of the tail fin) you will see a difference between males and females. The female has a normal looking fin, the male will have one that looks more like a stick, it is called a gonopodium and is used when he mates with the female. Mollies and platties are live bearing fish - that means they don't lay eggs, they give birth to live young - and all livebearers have this adaptation.

It is a lot harder to tell the difference between male and female goldfish, females are often a bit fatter in the tummy but this is no guarantee.

Hope this helps, good luck sexing your fish.

Answer 4

Its hard to tell with goldfish,but both the molly & the platy are live bares and its easy to tell ,the boy has an extra fin on his tummy.

Answer 5

no rely if it particularly is a livebearer a woman could have a around fan like anal fin and a male could have a genopodium or a straight away anal fin. if egglayer ultimate i now could be women are wider whilst considered from precise. might help if i knew the call of fish.

Answer 6

Molly and Platy males have bigger fins. Especially the dorsal fin (the big one on their back) Females have smaller, less colorful fins.


Goldfish are almost impossible to tell apart, even for experts.

Answer 7

normally female animals are larger than males (in the wild.) and sometimes they have color variations...for fish i would also look at their fins.

Answer 8

i have absolutely no idea!!, good question though!, this should be posted up on the front page with all those other good questions that pop up!!



have a star!

Answer 9

If it sulks and winges its a male

Answer 10

colours size and fins..