Can Gouramis Stop Growing If

[sylvia]

Is it just the edges that are black? Can you get a picture?
If this is the case, it is finrot (probably Aeromonas sp.). The best thing to do is VERY gradualy decrease the temperature in your tank to 76 deg F. This slows the bacteria and gives the fish a chance to fight the infection. Water changes are also a must.
Which country do you live in? I might be able to suggest a specific brand that has worked for me - what are you using right now?

 

[Fizban]

i live in Western Australia i will be borrowing a camra soon so i will try to get a pic ............i would not say its black more a dark color of brown and its more like dirty patchers on the fins the edges they seem okay on most of the fins .......... they are looking like they were playing in the dirt other that they dont act or seem sick ..........im useing aqua masters multi cure ....i am doing a lot of Water changes well 2 times a week ...........................its anoying to look at cuz there fin color looks like its got a shadow of dirt over it

 

[sylvia]

Lol - Australia is somewhere I've never been (Though I'd absolutely love to!) Regardless, I looked this up and it looks like you should buy something such as Wardley Fungus-Aide which treats columnaris (the bacterium that causes finrot in most cases). This is available in Australia. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to find a list of all active ingredients in fish meds. so that's the only one I know should work.

From what I gather, what you are using currently, treats a number of things. I haven't been able to find what this uses but it's generaly best not to use meds. that are broad-spectrum, if you aren't treating for everything it claims to cure, as you risk encouraging resistance. Also, it may be less effective at treating any one of the diseases it is for seeing as care has to be taken to ensure none of the ingredients interact - obviously, like I said, I haven't been able to find what this treatment contains, but they may have had to sacrifice some more effective chemicals in favour of less volatile ones.

 

[Fizban]

righttttt the multi cure stuff is uses in treating white spot. velet disease .fungal diseases. i no alot of the pet stores rownd here use it if they get new fish in or just every few munths to be shore nuthing makes the fish sick ............i will look for the Wardley Fungus-Aid i think i may have seen it some where 76 deg F is ruther low u shore the fish will be okay with that ( i have other fish in there other then gouramis )

 

[sylvia]

What other fish to do you have and what's your temp. at now? As long as you lower the temp. very gradualy (so do it over a few days), they should be fine. I do this whenever my fish have finrot or other columnaris infections - it makes an almost instant difference. If you feel uncomfortable with such a large drop (though I don't know what your temp.'s at right now), then maybe just lower the temp. 2-3 degrees (gradualy) and see what happens (BTW, make sure you are working in Fahrenheit as it's a larger drop if you go down 2-3 degrees C since 1 degree F = something like 1.4 degrees C).

 

[Fizban]

i have 2 yellow fin eel tails 6 cory one sword tail ..........here some thing intresting the tanks temp was about 76 ......i guess i should get that 200w heater .........i did buy one sighs but it must have heatered up to quick cuz i turned it to 32 c and put it in a few mins later i hear a pop and the bottem of the heater had shot off it was like it had been cut off it looked like a cap so i went back to the heater thats realy probly not hight anuth wattage wize so it says 76 or 77 heat in there now so i guess i dont need to turn it down ..............i think the best i can do is look for some better meds and chang the water alot cuz it dose not seem to get better or worse i kind of gave up ask how to fix it some time ago cuz i always go answers that are mostly what you have surgested and they never seem to work .........................i think if i was going to give them a real big chance i would have to do a realy risky thing like change all the water and all the stones so every thing is 100% new but im told that they will probly die if i do that due to stress and the water being what the word cant think of the term i just rember changing all the water at one time can kill the fish (and evan if i did that the fin rot may not go i will find a way its just going to take some time............but this has given me an idear with out takeing all the water outr i can probly take out all the gravel and put in new stuff or would that be bad as well?

 

[sylvia]

Changing all the water wouldn't kill the fish as long as the new water was de-chlorinated and had similar parameters to that of your tank (similar pH, hardness and temperature). However, changing all the rocks/gravel could cause a re-cycle (ammonia and ntirIte spikes) and this CAN kill your fish.

Having said that, this isn't going to help your gouramies. Just do some more frequent water changes to make sure water quality is good and treat with an appropriate medication. It's good that your temperature is/was low. The higher it is, the faster the bacteria grow and the quicker the fish get worse.

 

[Fizban]

do u think its posible to make a new typ of gourami out of the three spot by breeding mutations or other crazy breeding ways and if so how do u when its a new typ ?

 

[sylvia]

It depends on what you mean by 'new types'. You're not going to get anything particularly amazing out of three-spots unless some interesting color mutation pops up or something (but the liklihood of this happening is extremely slim). What you can do is what i was talking about in another thread -selectively breeding for a particular trait (eg: darker color) by crossing those individuals that resemble what you are looking for most generation after generation.

You don't 'know' when a new type has emerged as there is no strict point where you can draw the line and say 'oh here's a completely new strain!'. Think about it this way - if you are breeding platinums from golds (by crossing the lightest golds so that you get progressively lighter fish), you'd be able to see a gradual continuum of colors ranging from a 'normal' gold to a slightly paler gold, to an even paler gold etc to a platinum. If you compaire a platinmu to a gold, the difference is obvious and you may decide to call the platinum a seperate variety to the gold. But, if you compaire a gold to a slightly paler gold, you'd probably not call them different strains. So basicaly, it's allr elative and it's up to you to decide.

Take a look at the various strains guppy breeders have created for example:
http/www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/...cs/guppy-rb.jpg these are 'red blonde' guppies
http/www.ifga.org/guppy_store/gs_shubel2.jpg and this is 'red'
http/www.guppy-fish.com/guppy/img/pramon...ll/06100022.jpg this one's a 'red albino'
http/ccg.org.br/fot/peixeswgc2003/redalb5.jpg and this one's an 'albino red bicolor'

My point is, they all look pretty similar. Some have obvious differences. Others look almost identical. But they are all considered seperate strains because they are descended from different lines and the original breeders gave them special names. The key, in this case, is that a pair from any of the above strains will breed true (eg: a red male X red female will give all red offspring).

Breeding guppies and guppy strains is considerably easier and less time-consuming than breeding gouramies so you progress much faster there.

 

[Fizban]

hmmm i see your point but what about this you said befor you could probly breed a realy dark all over black color i dont rember seeing a black one befor ? what if u made one of them and at the same time you got some realy freaky fin typ from a mutation would still be just the same thing only a difrent color ? oh by the way is there a black color 3 spot out there ?i have not seen one?

 

[sylvia]

I'm not sure what you mean? Do you mean whether a black three-spot with a new fin variation would be considered a new type? This depends on whether you'd consider sailfin platies particularly different to 'ordinary' platies (for example). Honestly, these deffinitions are entirely irrelevant. If the fish look different or are bred from a specific strain (even if they look very common), you can call them what you like.

I'm wondering now whether you are perhaps confusing 'species' with 'type'? You won't ever produce a new species (incidentaly, the same continuum I described before applies to species but this is a technicality and can be ignored practicaly).

There are no completely black three-spots but there are some that are particularly dark opalines. With some selective breeding, I'm sure this could be developed into a dark morph (as was done with blue dwarf gouramies or platinum three-spots for example). All you'd need to do is breed the darkest opalines to the darkest opalines generation after generation. If I ever have the space for large-scale three-spot breeding in future, I'll try it out myself.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

hope you don't mind me butting in, sylvia--i just thought i would point out some things that you've implied but not explicitly stated.

you won't produce a new "type" or strain of fish with just one breeding session. you might could produce it by repeatedly line breeding 3 or 4 gouramis to their offspring, but this would be an incredibly weak line from a genetic standpoint.

if you are seriously attempting to create a new strain of 3-spots, it will probably take at least 5 generations and many unrelated fish for breeding stock--a gradual trait such as "dark color" would take significantly more generations. as sylvia mentioned, this would be a large-scale breeding project and not really something that would happen by accident.

i'd also like to point out that this sort of project would also produce a lot of "undesirable" fry that would have to be disposed of either through rehoming or culling. however, you'd need to raise most of these fry for an extended period of time before you could distinguish between the keepers and the culls. thus, you would need many grow-out tanks in addition to your breeding tank and the tanks where you keep your breeding stock.

i'm not saying that it can't be done and, like sylvia, i think that a "black 3-spot" project sounds quite interesting. i just want to point out that the sucessful creation of a new strain of gourami might take a pretty considerable amount of effort.

 

[Fizban]

hmmm i thort the name three-spot could be used for any of the color morphs and i thort opalines gouramies or platinum ones were just anuther color morph?..................and i guess im realy asking some thing like when would three-spot be considered a new type (cuz i mean there are gouramis that are related but are not 3 spots right ? i may be realy wrong here but if u went back in the evolution of the gouramis some of the now difrent fish typs must have broken away from the same sauce?..............oh and this is more qestions of trying to under stand more about them cuz i am probly just going to try breed some dark dark long fin gouramis and give what i dont want to the pet store ..............is there a dark morph/all over one color out there ?...............................................any surgestions on what color female would be intresting to breed to a very dark male opaline cuz this dark male opaline is probly one i will always want to breed i think the darkness of his body you dont find that easy........or at least i have not seen many pics as dark

 

[sylvia]

It's easier to answer some of your last questions first. For a dark opaline, if you want dark offspring, breed him to another dark opaline. Logical right? Also, there are no existing dark strains but they should certainly be possible to develop.

Now for the first part of your post. I was right before - you are confusing 'strain' or 'type' with 'species'. Anything you produce from three-spots will always be a three-spot. You'll never be able to create a completely new species. You are right in thinking that all species of gourami - if you go back in time - eventualy meet at a common anscestor. However, we are talking millions of years of natural selection - nothing you could acheive in even a lifetime. The process of evolution is very gradual and it has taken 3.5 billion years for human beings to evolve (to give you a sense of the time scale) from the first forms of life.

The popular deffinition of a 'species' is organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring and are reproductively isolated from other species. By 'interbreeding to produce fertile offsping', I mean that you cannot cross two seperate species and produce babies that can themselves mate. A good example is the mule - donkeys and horses can interbreed to produce mules (or hinnies) but mules are infertile. By 'reproductively' isolated I mean that they don't naturaly meet or simply cannot reproduce in the wild. For example the raccoon butterflyfish from the red sea is isolated from other raccoon butterflyfish because of its location. You could equaly say this about dogs and wolves (though dogs are only a subspecies of wolves - not a seperate species) as they don't normaly meet for long enough to mate. The alternative to this is that they simply cannot mate even if they meet. An example would be mice and dogs - it simple won't work. The same would go for a livebearing fish like a guppy and something that lays eggs like a gourami. Also, there are cases where differences in courtship behaviour mean the two species can't cross - like different birds of paradise.

You might be wondering why species change enough to not be able to reproduce with each other in the first place - this is usualy the result of geographical isolation. For example, think of a small flock of birds that is blown off-course and onto a small island. For the sake of this explanation, imagine there are no other birds there but that there are various different flying insects to feed on. The flock of birds may have, originaly, belonged to a species that specialises in eating earthworms and has a beak 'designed' for pulling them out of the soil. Clearly, these birds will have difficulty, on the new island, finding earthworms (assume there aren't any) and will have to find a new source of food. The flying insects are a good bet and they start to feed on them. Now imagine, somewhere along the line, a chick is born with a tiny, tiny difference in the shape of its beak or maybe wings better suited to maneouvering. The change need only be minute - barely recognisable - to offer this chick an advantage. It'll be healthier, therefore, more successful at catching the flying insects, and it will mate and raise mroe chicks. Some of these chicks will also carry or display the 'improved' beak and/or winds and, so, will themselves, have an advantage. over many, many generations, these island birds will evolve to look significantly different to their anscestors that were swept in accidentaly from the nearby mainland. The descendants of the birds living on the mainland will also probably have evolved in a different direction (say now the number of earthworms has declined due to some other predator that was newly itnroduced). Over time, the two populations will diverge - growing so different that they couldn't reproduce even if they met. Now, they'd be considered seperate species when compared. This would take thousands of years though - if not millions.

Another criterion for classifying species is their appearance/body functions (biochemical, physiological, morphological etc). In some cases, these things are obvious - like a paradisefish and a bird of paradise - clearly very different species. However, sometimes this kind of thing is measleading (just think about how different some people look to each other - or maybe how different a peahen looks to a peacock!).

More recently, we've been able to look at the very DNA of species to see how closely related they are - the more closely related, the smaller the differences in their genes. We are very simlar to chimps, for example, as we have descended from a common anscestor - we are considerably different when compared to dogs, dolphins or horses - but even more different to a dragonfly or a crab as they are not even mammals. Ultimately though, all living things descended from some common anscestor.

The thing to understand is that 'species' are things we specify. There is no 'cut-off' point where a new species is formed. In fact, there are living examples that demonstrate this - for example, there are two species of bird - the black backed gull and the herring gull that appear as different species in Europe. But - and this is a big 'but' - if you follow the herring gulls back towards North America, they gradualy change to look increasingly like herring gulls. Continue to follow them in a sort of semi-circle back to Europe - and gradualy they 'become' herring gulls. Herring gulls and black backed gulls are distinct species - they cannot interbreed. However, trace the line around and they may well appear to be the same bird! This is the case, ultimately, with all species - except, unlike with herring and black-backed gulls, the intermediates that join two distinct species have dissapeared - long extinct.

My point is that, while, by deffinition, you cannot create a new species during your lifetime (or the next few millenia!), species are not, in fact, very far removed from 'varieties' or 'types' - this is where different species begin

I don't know whether that's helped you or confused you though LOL

BTW pica_nuttalli, thanks for clarifying those points. I realy appreciate it as I know I can sometimes be quite conservative when writing (still ends up way too wordy though!). I miss a lot of stuff out

 

[Fizban]

you typ alot so your saying i cant make a gouramis that will supass man kind and rule the world ........................i can kind of get what your saying but if what you say is right about a tiny, tiny difference in the shape of its beak or maybe wings better suited to maneouvering. The change need only be minute - barely recognisable - to offer this chick an advantage (and so on till theres been so much change to the bird that it could not breed with the typ of bird it was befor if evolution dose follow that line of progress then you probly would no that every now and then there can be jumps in evolution by that i mean a freaks or big mutations that cuz of the advantage what ever it is it may breed more and pass along the change that it had and so on... where as most of the time evolution is soooooooooooooooooo solw and can take time to catch up to what ever the advantage the freaks line got ............and as for evolution % for chimps they are mans nearest gene match i cant rember the % correctly but i think u will get the idear when i am done im going to say the genes they have in comen are 95% with man i was suprised when i was told that may sound very near but realy its not as near as it sounds cuz again i cant realy rember the % so i will be a little off as i was saying its not as near as it sounds cuz we have about 87% genes with a bananas (i no that sounds stupied and you probly will tell me im realy wrong but i do rember that it was like that cuz i was shocked ..................oh and did u no some typ of chimp is now useing crude tools and traps ?.................anuther intresting bit of info the Bible says animales dont have soles? mind u i spose u dont bleave in god cuz your not ment to bleave in evolution if you bleave in god your ment to bleave in addem and eve .................hehe im shore my spelling became a maze and made you confuse