Surprise surprise!

[Ancistrus]

One of my p.metallica molted today and I was almost certain that it was a male, but to my surprise, it turned out to be girl!!!

This time I managed to save the molt and look under a microscope and sure enough, there was a flap, flapping around.

She grew from 2.5 to about 3".

By the way, how fast do p.mets grow? How much time from now it would take to mature?

Thanks.

 

[viper69]

Would be great if you posted an image of the goods you observed for others to see.

Rate of growth depends on type of food, amount, frequency of feeding, and temperature. It's a small species so they don't take too long.

 

[KezyGLA]

Poecs usually take a good stretch when they mould a P.met is usually mature at roughly 4.5 inch mark

 

[Ancistrus]

Wow, my T is about 1.5" from maturity? (Fyi, i feed her small dubias and !ealworms, both worms and beetles about one a week or once every two weeks) she's not a good eater.

Besides size, how can you know if your female T is sexuallu mature? Does she act different? Any physical differences? Etc.

Also, I was about to post a picture I took proving its a girl, but something was wrong with my phone, I will post it later.

 

[Kevin0610]

well as long as shes close to adult size, another way to see if the female is mature is to just introduce a male and see if shes receptive. If she starts drumming then you can be pretty sure shes mature.

 

[Ancistrus]

Here are some photos.