Re: Re[2]- Water/calcium

Scott Buckel (Scott.Buckel at amgen.com)
28 May 1996 16:14:05 -0800

Reply to: RE>>Re[2]: Water/calcium

>Similarly for Desert Gobies, it seems that adding calcium (in whatever form)
and salt (up to the equivalent of seawater) improves the sex ratios towards
equality whereas a vast oversupply of females seems to be common in
situations where thet are raised in softish neutral to acid water. While we
are on the subject of DG's, has anyone else seen the phenomenon of sex
reversal occurring? A few times when left with a group of females only in a
tank of DGs one of the larger specimens has become a functional male and gone
on to breerd successfully. These particular males never became as brilliantly
coloured as the primary males. Asimilar process occurs in many marine fishes
such as the anemonefishes etc.

Strange you should bring this up. There is a hobbyist in this area that says
he sees this sex change in DG's all ofthe time. In fact he has frequently
sold off all but 2 females and they spawn relatively soon afterwards. I have
gotten this information second hand, and I plan to follow up on this in the
near future.

Scott Buckel (RSG)