# Auratus sex change operation



## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

It seems that my auratus is maturing to a male. Over the last two weeks he lost his beautiful black and yellow colors and it started blending together to look gray. Now some of the blacks are starting to be more dominant. How long does it usually take......and do they even have egg spots? I've never seen egg spots on an auratus but the guy at the LFS said i should see them


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Its like puberty in that the time varies, but its more complicated than that. The males can darken their colors to impress females and pale out to hide or show a more dominant male that he is not a threat (trying to breed). Some males will look like females until all other males are out of the tank and some older females will darken and look like changing males. Usually one male will show the dark black reverse colors and he will attack others that darken. With only one Auratus, he may darken completely or stay pale and intermediate. In a tank that size, I'd expect a either the Auratus or a Socolofi to be the "boss fish". The auratus will darken when he feels in control and pale out when overmatched by a larger or meaner fish.

This is the point where aggression can get deadly. Remove any fish from the tank that is bleeding, has wounds on its side, is missing enough fin to swim funny or is not allowed to eat. Likely you have enough aggressive fish that they will just chase all day, but if any fish is singled out for abuse it can be bullied to death by all the fish in the tank.


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## PuterChickFL (Feb 23, 2010)

the socolofi holds his (or her) ground pretty well. The two zebras are the biggest fish in the tank, but not by a whole lot, with the red zebra being more of a boss than anything. the two yellows are smaller, and one of them is smaller than I think he should be. He would hide in plants alot. I've watched him for a while and he doesnt seem to be in distress.

the auratus is digging in more than one spot right now it seems. all of my decorations are "shifting" lol


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