How to tell if my SH is Male or Female?

[PalaciosAn]

I got my first Seahorse about a week ago and I am very surprised on how well it is doing… I keep reading about people breading them and I think it would be cool to try. The only problem is I have no idea if it is a male or female and how to tell them apart. From what I read it sounds like the male holds the eggs so they has a pouch and it looks like this one does not have a pouch but I am not sure how obvious they are.

Here are some of the live things in my thank: fire fish, dragon goby, cleaner shrimp and will soon have a clown goby. One thing I noticed was that my SH is scared to death of my cleaner shrimp not sure if there is an issue having the two together, my cleaner shrimp keeps trying to clean it….

Also I believe I have a Erectus but I am not sure….

 

[Peka]

It appears to be a she but it would be easier to tell if you had a picture of her without the shell behind her. The females belly rounds down, where as the male's rounds off to a pouch towards the tail. Also, depening on the age of the SH it could still need to mature and it can become a male because they all start out looking like females and then they develop pouches.

 

[namxas]

visual aids:

MALE:

FEMALE:

i agree with Beth...altho it's not a great pic for sexing the SH, yours appears to be a female. however, based on the apparent head-to-body size, your SH also appears to be fairly young, so it could be an "undeveloped" male.

a profile pic would help a lot, as would telling us the size/age of the SH.

 

[rayjay]

I would be concerned with the stress factor of the seahorse with those tank mates.
Stress can lead to seahorse problems.

 

[namxas]

as rayjay mentioned, cleaner shrimp and SH don't usually mix well, as the shrimp tend to INSIST on cleaning them, which the SH don't care for...

 

[PalaciosAn]

Sorry about I did not realize this account was pointing to an old email address. Thanks for the great picture of the SH showing the difference between the two, that really helps.

As far the age I am not sure how old it was once I bought it and its been in my tank for 3 weeks now. It seems to be doing real well the SH is eating really well. The size of the SH is about 2.5 inches at this point it looks like I have a female. Will get a better picture today when I feed.

I was also told by someone that males did not have the fin on there belly and that is an easy way to tell if they are a boy or girl at a young age, it looks like in the picture that you have namax the male still has the fin so I am assuming this is not true.

 

[namxas]

The fin has nothing to do with it...it's the presence or lack of a brood pouch, or in simple terms, the females look like the letter P in profile (they have a defined, rounded belly), while the males have a belly that slopes to their tails.

 

[SaylorsReef]

I think it's too small to say for sure. I would definately get rid of the cleaner shrimp.

Also, seahorses do better if they are kept with another seahorse.

 

[amonte]

Great example of sexing SH. A big help, Thanks

 

[amonte]

Also beautiful SH. I'm definitely going to set up a tank for these amazing critters.

 

[Jeremy Snyder]

It appears to me to either be a dwarf or a young-in. If it is indeed a dwarf than it appears to be an adult and a female.