How to vent Firemouths? Anyone know how?

[DTony]

Just as the title says, Does anyone know how to Vent Firemouths? Help would be much appreciated.

[Zulaab]

How old are the Firemouths ? When they grow out to the size where they are ventable, you can just look at the fins and they will tell you.
On Firemouths, females trailers are very short, where as a males trailers from the dorsal and anal fin will come to the end of the caudal fin.
If you want to vent them and if they are to small what will happens is the females "parts" will not have extended far enough and will look like a male's part.
Like almost all cichlids, the females "second" opening from the front is bigger than a males. It will look like there is two needle openings on a male, where the female will have the needle hole opening and then slightly bigger hole to the rear. Again this is not really good technique to tell until they are fully grown and as I said.. you can then look at the fins and see it.
Firemouths grow to full size in about 9-12 months time. They are fast growers compared to Africans who takes usually 18-24 months to grow all out.

[DTony]

I'm not sure on the age, but they are all about 3.5-4inches long from snout to the end of their tail. I take it the "trailer" is the 2 front fins on the bottom of the fish? I have about 4.. all of them are not the same size but are of the same age I presume. So males will have a longer tube extending out and females will have shorter ones?

[armthehomeless]

The trailers that zulaab refers to are the tips of of fins . The dorsal (top) and anal (second fin on the bottom) wil haved extensions. Male are also more colorful. In the picture below, the firemouth's dorsal trailer is red.