Do female opalines????

[Mr Miagi]

........try to create bubbles? Heres a pic of mine breathing, or what looks like it, with streams of salyva coming out periodically. Ive never seen it before, and im stumped. She is showing no signs of distress, no illness, no odd behaviour.

Stats are fine, if not perfect! Checked em today.

Do feamles try and teach males, cause my male hasnt bothered building one, and there is plenty of surface structure to utilise.

 

[Ethos]

Mine never has. I dont think they should either
She does breath alot above water. When I see that, I put the water down a bit. I've never seen any saliva come out either.....

PS: What a lovely fish! Mine doesn't display as much color in pictures! You got her at a good angle!

 

[OohFeeshy]

Its possible she's bubblenesting. In bettas females bubblenest sometimes, so I'd imagine female gouramis can do it too.

 

[sylvia]

Umm... are you sure that's the right picture?

 

[Mr Miagi]

Umm... are you sure that's the right picture?

Yeah, my camera cant pick up the 'salyva' that seems to come from her mouth. Have you heard of any gourami doing this before sylvia?

Heres another. I know it just looks like she is breathing, but this is when she 'expells' something that looks like salyva from her mouth. Hope she is fine.
She still has her apitite!

 

[sylvia]

No that wasn't the problem It's just that the picture is of a pearl and you said opaline.

That's a lovely fish there BTW. You don't need to worry about her. Some gouramies will do this kind of thing from time to time but you'll rarely get a female that actualy builds a nest - they just blow bubbles. Usualy it seems to happen when there are no males around but it may also happen if the fish is ready to spawn but the male(s) aren't or if the males aren't doing too well with their nest she'll try to help them out (not usualy to any avail ). Then there's those girls who just like to do this as a hobby .

Out of curiosity, do you have any other gouramies, and particularly males, in with her? You mentioned you have another male pearl that hasn't tried to build a nest. Do you think you could post a picture of him? Realy, I'm just curious (and love your pics!). I've always wondered exactly why a female will try to bubblenest and I think it's probably out of frustration because the other male isn't doing his job . How big is she? How big is the male?

 

[Def]

sylvia, if it helps, my female has done some bubble blowing, and as per the other thread my guy isn't too sure about what he's doing...

 

[Mr Miagi]

No that wasn't the problem It's just that the picture is of a pearl and you said opaline.

That's a lovely fish there BTW. You don't need to worry about her. Some gouramies will do this kind of thing from time to time but you'll rarely get a female that actualy builds a nest - they just blow bubbles. Usualy it seems to happen when there are no males around but it may also happen if the fish is ready to spawn but the male(s) aren't or if the males aren't doing too well with their nest she'll try to help them out (not usualy to any avail ). Then there's those girls who just like to do this as a hobby .

Out of curiosity, do you have any other gouramies, and particularly males, in with her? You mentioned you have another male pearl that hasn't tried to build a nest. Do you think you could post a picture of him? Realy, I'm just curious (and love your pics!). I've always wondered exactly why a female will try to bubblenest and I think it's probably out of frustration because the other male isn't doing his job . How big is she? How big is the male?

Thanks sylvia and Def, good to know she is somewhat normal! Yay!

Thanks for the complements on the photos! ) It took alot of photos (over 60) just to get 10 decent ones last week, and the male is camera shy, so i havnt got any except a really old one. Doh

She is smaller than the male, by about 2-3cm's. He is alot larger in too!

Here is the male.... He wont build a nest, and there is plenty of opportunity. Water flow is minimal at the surface, alot of high plants including val and riccia thats floating, god food....huumpgh!

There are only 4 gouramis in there at the presen time. 3 Femlae, 1 male.

Here is the best could do yesterday...

Old one....a month or so or even more....

Sorry about the name mix up. In aus we call them opaline or pearls. Common names are so mis leading!


And just for your viewing pleasure....my fav.... )

 

[sylvia]

Those realy are the most amazing pictures. Your fish are lovely

 

[qwikimpss]

AH, just call them trichogaster leeri, easier that way.

 

[sylvia]

No, seriously, it would be so much simpler if we called fish by their scientific name...

 

[troutfly]

I have noticed my Dwarfs doing the same thing, every now and then the females will surface and blow bubbles. I know they are bubble nesters so I figured it was normal behavior. The interesting thing I noticed, is that when I feed live blood worms, my males have taken to the habit of "spittting water" and jumping at my finger to gain access to the worms before anyone else has a chance, it kind of took me by suprise when it first happened. I didn't know they colud do this like an Archer Fish does, kind of neat to watch.