Are your fish he, she, it, something else, or nothing

p7willm · Jun 24, 2016

Fish, more than people, do not easily fit into the normal male/female thing. Some are hermaphroditic, some change based on circumstance, some are difficult to tell apart, and some are easy.

How do you refer to your fish?

I have an Angel that is hermaphroditic so I use it.

I have a school of chromis and I only refer to them as a group without sex.

I have a single clown. I know that if I had a pair one would become female and larger and the other one would be male and smaller. I only have one so I think it is male and I refer to it as he.

So I try to decide what it is and use appropriate pronouns. In the future I will have fish that are hard to decide what do I do then. I want to call my Angel he. Can I just say screw it and use whatever pronoun I like?

What do you do? Do you decide what the fish is and use a proper pronoun? Do you use what you want? Does it change based on your mood? If a fish changes sex do you change pronouns? What if you get a juvenile and refer to it as he and it turns out to be a girl? Do you just refer to them as fish? Do you use a pronoun that does not carry sexual baggage? I need to know.

Tahoe61 · Jun 24, 2016

We as humans tend to give our fish and inverts human characteristics, they do not care.

If it is an obvious match such as mature clowns I use the he/she titles.

Everybody else (fish and inverts really get no gender tags), that is just me.

4FordFamily · Jun 24, 2016

My fish can identify as whichever sex they want. I try to be very contemporary and politically correct. Some of them may even identify as inanimate objects like tennis balls and throw rugs.

Untamedrose · Jun 24, 2016

IN species where you really cant tell....It's like your car...some are she's some are he's....depends upon the cars personality same here for fish..

Sometimes behavior can tell...like a royal gamma male builds nests. Females looking for such.

In the case of your single clown...Dominate clown always becomes female even with no one else around. Give it a few months thats a girl.

Check these out http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=7094