gourami question

[jazzx101]

I've been looking for some female dwarf gourami's at my various lfs and I have seen some that I think MAY be females..but I need to be sure, because other than one or two people at these stores they hire teenagers who are fairly unknowledgable about fish. So I have some questions that are probably fairly basic about female gouramis, something I have had some trouble really finding a lot of info about.

I know the females are a silver/dull color compared to the males of most of the species...I have seen a few silverish gouramis in with blue/flame dwarf gouramis, and by silver, I mean they are really colorless compared to the others in the tank.

I am not sure however if gouramis aquire their color at a certain age however or this at birth? Are they all born silver or are the males born with the color almost immediately. I want to be sure that I get females because I already have two males and I do not wish to add any more. I'm really trying to find some females at a LFS instead of having to go through the hassle of ordering them online. any help would be appreciated.

thanks

 

[sylvia]

Well females are silver like you described but males do develop their coloration later on You can also tell by the fins if they are male or female though but that can be more difficult if you don't have experience with both sexes as you have nothing to compare with. What sort of size are the silver fish at your LFS? If they are bigger than say about 1" they should have started developing their adult color so you should be able to see which ones are male. At about 1.5" any silver fish are almost deffinately female.

 

[jazzx101]

Yeah, these are about an inch, they are really about the same size as the flame red ones they are in (and those are definately not full grown yet). They also have at one particular store what they claim to be dwarf honey gold gourami. These are all very tiny, about a quarter of an inch, and white with semi transluscent bodies on their bellies and tops. What do you think of this?

 

[sylvia]

I'd say they are females then. You could always get them and if they turn out to be males you can exchange them for females. Or tell your LFS to hold them a little while for you and see if they change color (develop adult male coloring)...

The honey gold dwarf gouramies or whatever they've called them will either be a color morph of the dwarf gourami (colisa lalia) or honey gouramies (colisa chuna/sota). There is so much confusion surrounding these fish. Many stores will spice up the names to sell more or fool customers into thinking this is a new or rare variety and it seems that 'dwarf' and 'honey' have been used interchangeably to describe so many different gouramies it gets incredibly confusing.

Going by your description though, I'd say they are young colisa chuna/sota, 'honey gouramies'. They only get to about 1.5", 2" max. Very nice little fish, peaceful and colorful, the males develop a blue-black underside when in breeding condition. The females remain a nice honey-brown to beige-silver. They are also quite a bit hardier than dwarfs.

Then again, they could be dwarfs

To add to the confusion, thick-lipped gouramies (colisa labiosa) also have a color morph that is often reffered to as a 'dwarf honey' gourami with added words here and there to spice the name up. These get to 3-4".

And there are hybrids of colisa lalia and colisa chuna/sota which are often sold as either one or the other or with more spice-up names.

It gets pretty confusing Thankfuly, all these fish are peaceful and have similar requirements so mixing them up doesn't cause any serious problems.

But, obviously, it's hard to determine what the fish at your LFS realy are without pictures. Even then it could be difficult as the fish sound like they are still very young.

 

[jazzx101]

Just one last question, think I know the answer but just want to check..

Are different breeds of dwarf gouramis (colors) still able to breed? And if so..is one of the colors more dominant?

 

[sylvia]

Yes and yes. I'm not sure of which color but I would expect the natural 'wild' color to be most dominant - I think powder blue is also likely the most recessive. I'm not certain though about their genetics - that's something I haven't realy looked into much as I don't breed many dwarfs