Gouramis Troubles

[johnnybegood]

I have two female Blue Gouramis in a 25 gal tank, they seemed to be get along fine together. However in the last two weeks one of the pair has lost all of it's colour and is hiding all the time. A piece of its tail fin is missing most likely from the other one chasing it. Until now the pecking order seemed in the past to always rotate back and forth with no one in a clear dominate position. Last week they appeared to be mating and showing off too each other. The dominate one is in full colour and both are eating normally with just the changes in behaviour.
Is the one under stress or is this part of the mating routine for sexually confused fish..

Any thoughts

 

[sylvia]

So let me get this right - you have 2 FEMALES that have been showing off to each other and trying to mate? Homosexuality tends to be a human thing... Are you sure they are both female? Whether they are or not, 25 gallons with just 2 three-spots is bound to lead to problems as one fish will always dominate the other. If it turns out you have one male and one female, return or re-home your male. If you do actualy have 2 females, you are, again, best off re-homing one. Another option would be to isolate one and then buy another one of the same exact size a couple of weeks later - introduce both the isolated fish and the new fish, to the tank containing the third, at the same time. Re-arange the tank just before you do this as well. In this way, to some extent, all 3 fish are new to the environment and, if you are lucky, they'll all settle down together and any aggression will be devided equaly between the 3. It would also help to add some new ornaments and plants at this time. Idealy, if the tank were a bit bigger, you could keep a group of 4 females which usualy elliminates aggression problems - having 3 may or may not work, 2 is usualy a disaster. If you have a male, however, this isn't an option and you'll just have to re-home one of your fish.