Gouramis Wierd Behaviour

[chishnfips]

Ok the script so far is as follows;

A fgew weeks I posted a thread about my two gouramis starting to breed, I believed that I had two red honey gouramis, 1 male, 1 female. But it turnned out after some help from sylvia that I had two males but of different types of gourami (1 red gourami) (1 red honey gourami).

But last night I witnessed some weird behaviour, The large gourami has a bright blue dorsal fin, which stretches back to his tail, anyway he has built a massive nest at the far left of my tank. My other gourami (that I once thought to also be a male) started to come over and they both started this weird flappy dance, then they intertwined and started to shake at each other. Then they would both go up to the nest and sit there for a while before repeating the process.

The red honey that I have, is red all over apart from a patch at the back which is going black and its anal fin is going yellow, I thought that this was a male due to the colouring, but I was looking on the net this morning and the colours on a male gourami are much more vibrant than this and cover alot more of the fish.

So now I think its a female.

The only reason I dont think they are both males is the fact that they aren't attacking each other.

 

[sylvia]

I remember seeing the picture of the dwarf gourami (which I thought was a male dwarf gourami anyway) but I'm not sure whether you posted a pic of the honey. I would suggest you do that now though - a recent picture of it would be very helpful in explaining what might be going on. Actualy, I know what's going on They are obviously trying to spawn. As honeys and dwarfs can hybridize, assuming the honey is female and the other fish is indeed a male dwarf, this is perfectly plausible. However, I may have made a mistake last time so I'll go look at that post and revise my previous decision I should add that, if they are indeed hybridizing, it would be best to stop them from producing any fry by seperating them or at least not raising the fry once they do hatch.

 

[sylvia]

Right - scrap everything I just said .

I took a look at that post. I've cleared up certain things First of all, the photos were indeed of a male dwarf and a male honey. Second, the photos were not of your own fish - they were from the net.

... This leads me to think that perhaps the issue is in that your fish are not exactly like the ones in the pictures so they aren't actualy what I suggested they were (I'm stating the obvious here)...

Anyway, I took a look at a more recent thread you posted about your gourami being injured (how did that turn out BTW?) where you posted a pic of him (assuming that's the fish?). I still think it's a male dwarf but that picture is much less clear and the fish looks a little distorted because it's out of water. I haven't seen the proposed 'honey' though.

Regardless, your fish are breeding. The behaviour you described is unmistakeable and can be nothing else that I can think of. I'm still warning you that, if they are not the same species, it would be somewhat irresponsible (IMO at least) to allow them to breed and to raise the fry. However, you are entitled to your own opinion and, if you decide to breed them, I'd be happy to help if you have questions. If you decide not to breed them, you don't realy have to do anything as the fry are unlikely to survive in a community tank anyway. If any do, as long as you keep them yourself, it's fine. Again, this is assuming you have two different species as, if they are the same, breeding and raising their fry is perfectly acceptable (IMO once again).

Just to clarify something (more because I am curious now that anything else), if they produce eggs, make a note of which fish is guarding the nest (it'll be the male) and let me know

 

[chishnfips]

Hiya sylvia, cheers for the reply.

Here is a picture of my other gourami (the one I think is a wifey) . This was taken a few months ago so the colour at the back is a bit darker but not that much.

I am sorry this is the best one I have. It is definately the dwarf gourami that is gouarding the nest and the red honey stays pretty much at the other side of the tank. I dont really have the resources to bring the wee the little guys upbut as you said they wont last long in the tank.

see what you think.

cheers.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

Really can't tell from that pic either way, but they wouldn't spawn if they weren't male & female anyway. And if you have plants in your tank the fry are more then capable of surviving! I know, mine have!!
Hugs,
P.

 

[black angel]

I'm confused. I thought all females were a silvery colour and just the males were brightly coloured? From the pics in the non fish section you put up chish I would've said it was a male!

 

[chishnfips]

I'm confused. I thought all females were a silvery colour and just the males were brightly coloured? From the pics in the non fish section you put up chish I would've said it was a male!

that is why I am so confussed, but they were totally getting jiggy with it. unless i have two homosexual fish . which is ok I wont hold it against them .

The dorsal fin on a male is defiantely pointed isn't it ? And on a female it is rounded, or is it the other way around.

 

[sylvia]

Sorry there's no way I can tell from that angle but, by the sounds of it, that must be a female. The other is male.

To clarify certain things -

DWARF gourami females tend to be a duller silver or brown with faint striping. Dwarf gouramies are colisa lalia.
HONEY gouramies are different. Males are brighter than females but certain color morphs produce brightly colored females as well. Honey gouramies are colisa chuna or colisa sota (both sota and chuna reffer to the same fish).

The confusion arises because a lot of LFSs label colisa lalia with various fancy names to match their colors - a marketing strategy that result in entirely unecessary mix-ups. These names include things like 'neon', 'neon blue', 'flame', 'red' and, unfortunately 'honey'.
To complicate matters further, a lot of LFSs call colisa chuna/sota 'honey DWARF gouramies'. Again, I suppose this is to emphasize their small size - or perhaps they simply don't know they have a different species One other explanation is also another reason for a lot of the confusion...
Some people consider all gouramies in the colisa genus to be 'dwarfs' in the sense that they are relatively small. It's quite obvious to see that a lot of other gouramies, not belonging to this genus, are even smaller and, IMO, labelling them all as 'dwarfs' just confuses matters.
Add on top of all this that several other species of gourami are sometimes mislabelled 'dwarf' or 'honey' gourami and consider that there's also a honey/dwarf hybrid circulating and you can see the problem.

Like I've said before - just use the scientific names and w won't have trouble

As for sexing them - in dwarf gouramies the male's fins appear longer and, the anal fin in particular, has a 'bulbous' appearance to it. They are also obviously quite a bit brighter (though females can have some coloring as well) and females are rounded around the belly area and appear wider when viewed from above. Dwarf gourami males also tend to grow a little larger than the females though they look slimmer.

In the case of honey gouramies, the body shape differences still apply (as they do with most fish in fact) but the fins are not as obviously different and the color is not usualy a reliable way of sexing them. In the wild-type honey females and juvenile fish are a translucent brown with a horizontal stripe running along the body. Males, in contrast, become a honey-yellow color and, when in breeding condition, darken and develop a blue-black udnerside. Unfortunately, many of the cultivated varieties (ie: red honey) are more difficult to sex as the females are also quite brightly colored and, in some cases, the males don't develop the black coloring at all.

The fish in the picture above can't be a wild-type honey (regardless of sex) as the color isn't right - if it's a honey, it must be one of the various color morphs. The color could also have it down as a male dwarf gourami - but not a female - and, for that matter, the black I see on it would be very unusual for a dwarf. As your other gourami is deffinately a male dwarf, it looks like this must be a female honey (or a dwarf/honey hybrid is also a possibility). One other possibility I had not considered is that it may be an entirely different species from what I assumed (within the colisa genus still). I doubt it but, just to make sure, how big is it and how long have you had it?

As for the fry surviving, I disagree with Miss Dib Dabs, if you don't feed them and if you have other mid-dwelling fish in the tank, they'll either get eaten or starve. Dwarf or honey gourami fry are tiny and require very small foods. If you have infusoria (plants are a source) in the tank they may well make it to a point - at least some will - but they have ridiculous appetites and can become canibalistic if hungry. With other fish in the tank as well and no larger foods to sustain them later as they grow, the number will quickly decrease. The few that may be left do stand a chance of surviving but, hopefuly, you'd be able to keep them yourself rather than give them up to an LFS (where someone irresponsible is bound to come along and breed a huge batch of hybrids).

Anyway, can you get a side picture of her?

 

[chishnfips]

I have had her for about er...........5 maybe 6 months. And she is about 2 inches long.

I haven't got a side pic at the moment, someone is borrowing my camera. so it'll be a while before I get that back.

What you are saying though totally makes sense when I see them both in the tank. Although all of the different names they get just boggles me.