I know fairy and flashers are all born female and some change to male. it's my understanding that this usually always happens in captivity unless there is a more dominant male. So here is my question... How quickly does the transformation happen? Days? Weeks? Years? Is there anything that makes it faster? The males are almost always 2 to 3 times more expensive than the females. For budget minded reefers is the female a better choice?
In fairies and flashers it usually happens even in the presence of a dominant male. It's what's wrong with buying "pairs" of wrasses. The female ends up turning male and WW3 breaks out. As to how long....could be days to months. I would think the larger the female(older) the quicker it would happen but I have nothing to base that on. Some genus of wrasses are a little different. Anampses wrasse usually don't transition in captivity. Females will stay females for years. Macropharyngodon (leopards) usually do but not always and usually take a long time to transition. I was surprised when my Potter's leopard wrasse transitioned in a few weeks. The other advantage of buying a female is that they are younger and will live a lot longer. A "terminal" phase male may only live a few years depending on his age when he transitioned.
So the change should be pretty quick for the eight line flasher and the hooded fairy? They were only available in female.
I just added a yellow fin flasher to my tank today. I had no idea what they meant when they said it was a terminal phase male. Thanks for clearing that up!
Terminal phase get's thrown around a lot to sell fish but it just means that the fish has reached a stage in the transition where it is no longer biologically possible to transition back to female. That can happen temporarily in the early stages of transition. The other term you see a lot is "super male" which really doesn't have any meaning....they're just trying to say theirs has exceptional color/markings. I love the yellow fin Allan, it's one of my favorite flashers
Got it, Terminal phase means Caityn Jenner. I never knew what that meant. I just assumed it was something with a color change.
Well if I understand it correctly Caitlyn still has her.....er.....ah......male anatomy so she could revert back if she wants. A terminal phase male can never go back. He's Terminated!
Both of my females arrived yesterday. The hooded fairy wrasse is bigger than expected and the eight line is smaller. Hopefully they will become terminal soon. I will keep everyone posted on their progress.
