Sexing matted filefish and sleeper blue dot goby

Inspected, and re-inspected my filefish many times, and it seems to have a few (about 3 on each side) bristles on that part. I guess mine's a female! I called my LFS earlier today to see if he had any in stock, which he does. I tried to get him to identify its gender, but he wasn't able to. I'm going to make a trip there tomorrow and have a look. The owner said if it isn't the gender I need, that he can order a few more and hope for the best, since they "don't have a distinctive feature to differentiate the sex".

Edit: Thanks, Greg!

 

I made my way to the LFS, and it looks like theirs was a male!

Edit: After more research, I see the male is typically larger than the female. The "male" I got is smaller than the one I had before, but I now realize that the smaller one is TOO small to tell its gender.

 

Here's the pair. The one on the right is the female and the one on the left is the (still young) male!

 

Looks like this thread was for nothing. The male passed away last week. He was found (still alive) attached to the intake portion of a powerhead. Sadly, he passed not long after he was freed.

 

Sorry for your loss

 

No learning experience is for nothing, my friend. You learned a few new things and that's valuable in this hobby. Sorry you lost the fish.

 

Sorry for your loss Zero and Renee is right, a learning experience is always valuable.

 

Thank you for the condolences. I suppose every reefing experience brings new knowledge

 

You did say the LFS could get more.

 

Yeah.. But I don't think I'll be getting more filefish for a while. Maybe when I get a bigger tank (eventually)