Honey Gourami Sex (gourami noob)

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leave them together until you see one kick hell out of the others, and that's unlikely to happen.

When they breed the male will look after the eggs and fry during the first few weeks of their life. Then they are on their own. If the male is nice he will ignore the females, if he's a bastard, he will bash em. If he bashes them then move them out so he can look after the babies by himself.

Your male is young and won't attain full colour for a few more months.
 
Thank you @essjay ! I appreciate you stopping by to confirm everything! And for your peace of mind, they will all 3 be in a 20 gallon, my main tank, community tank, whatever it would be called. I might keep 2 or 3 guppy males with them, have 3 otocinclus, 2 ghost shrimp, and some RCS as well.

I do see where it almost seems like females are more "picky" though, at least the very, very little experience I have, which doesnt include experience with multiple males, lol.

I just LOVE how the wild type change colors though! They do it pretty quickly too! It couldnt have been more than 60-90 seconds that the male went from brown/silver, to orange and yellow and black. The female wild is usually 100% silver, until she gets "frisky" I guess? Then she gets brown on her as well. The male wild is pretty in breeding colors, but the yellow/golden female is prettier IMO the rest of the time.

Lol, I didnt see your message @Colin_T when I first started typing. Had to edit to fix it and say "Thank You!" I'll keep that advice in mind. I'm going to do a good gravel clean in the 20g, and go grab a few more plants, and then put the wild honeys in the 20g, so they wont have the additional stress of a W/C and vacuum.

One more thing: if the current in tank is too strong, and male cant successfully build a bubble nest, what happens? Do they try and breed indefinitely? Do they give up? Do they hide eggs somewhere else? Do they stress out and get sick? I have parts to craft a DIY spray bar, just havent done it, the yellow gourami is fine with the current, as are the other occupants. I tried to do reverse flow, it just shoved the first couple inches of gravel up, didnt go far. I wanna RIP out the UGF, but that's a whole other project... But ya, what happens with the bubble nest?
 
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I once had a male honey gourami which never bothered with a bubble nest. He just deposited the eggs round the heater cable.

Floating plants would help; other gouramis I have had over the years made bubble nests among the plants. When i had gouramis, I had Salvinia as a floating plant.
 
They build and build and build and eventually get frustrated and go nuts. Then anything can happen.

Have lots of Water Sprite in the tank and they should be happy.
 
Ok. I'm not sure if I have Sprite or not. I have hygrophilia or whatever that one is that I always forget the name. Water wisteria, GOBS AND GOBS of hornwort, and picked up some tall tall plants, one called bleheri or something, and one is a mix of a few. Looks like super tall swords and super tall skinny crypts, though I dont think that's the species. Then my two small driftwood, and I can throw a very big driftwood in there too, it's kind of too big for the 10 anyways. This thing is about 40cm(16") long × 13cm(5") wide × 10cm(4") tall! Barely fits in the 10g, but should stand upright nicely in the 20, and would definitely break line of sight.
 
Let the stems of hornwort grow long enough to lay on the water surface, or leave some stems to float. I have both hornwort floating on the surface and water sprite in my 180 litre at the moment. I know Colin hates hornwort but I love it, except when it takes over and I have to thin it out :D
 
I wouldnt say I LOVE hornwort, but I do like how its easy to maintain as far as it growing, and I do REALLY LIKE how it knocked my nitrates into nothing in no time. However I HATE when it sheds at the slightest motion. I have some rubber banded and stuck to suction cups to keep it near surface, but not go everywhere, and some with a weight, but they always come out of their bundles, and end up going wherever they want, and when they do, they SHED ALL OVER!

But, they are the easiest plant to grow, and the easiest and cheapest for me to obtain. I really want some amazon frogbit, really bad. Even water lettuce, red root floater, or salvinia would be nice. All of which I would have to order online. Same with java moss or cabomba, which both I think I would like. Someday, I will order some. Just like someday I'm gonna order assassin snails for my overpopulus of bladder pond whatever ugly turd snails...

In either case, got heaps of floaters, nothing is planted or anchored in my tank, except java fern on driftwood, and two stems of water wisteria on the other driftwood.
 
You can buy lead weights/ plant anchors that are about 2 inches long and you can bend them around the Hornwort to hold it in place.

Cabomba is not the easiest plant to grow. Ambulia is much easier and looks similar.

Water Lettuce does not do well in aquariums unless that they get heaps of light, have dry leaves and good air flow. They go mouldy and rot when kept under coverglass.
 
My hornwort sheds a few leaves but not much, just a small cluster collecting under the filter by the time a water change is due. I only have a problem when I thin it as that rubs the stems together and pulls leaves off.
Several years ago I had an additional smaller tank and I put in a rock I bought from a fish store. The following day the water was very cloudy and the hornwort had lost every single leaf. I had a tank of naked stems! It took ages to siphon the leaves out. I put the rock in a bucket of clean water and next day could not see the bottom of the bucket so the cloudiness was from the rock not the disintegrated hornwort. I have no idea what the rock actually was but the hornwort didn't like it at all. But the rock looked good with air plants attached to it.
 
Hornwort hates changes in temperature or water chemistry. The most common cause of them falling apart is when they go from a cold water pond to a warm water tank. They shed leaves and melt. Sudden changes in pH and water chemistry also causes it to fall apart.
 
The rock certainly did something to the water chemistry! Luckily the fish were unharmed. I have no idea why the shop sold this kind of rock, it was a chain in the UK that is usually well respected (Maidenhead Aquatics)
 
Weird! I havent put any rocks in my tank, besides gravel. I have wanted to try doing lava rock though. It's very porous, supposedly can hold lots of BB, and I imagine attaching plants to one, would make for a really good nutrient root delivery. It would have to be large though, lava rock is pretty light.

I do have a couple of the bendy lead weight things, and was using them for a bit of hornwort. I have them on my 2 new plants now though. I really didnt like the look of the black pots stuffed with cotton, in my tank.

I'm not sure if I have "high light" but probably not, since I'm not using metal halides or anything. I have the fluorescent, 18", and have a 50/50 actinic bulb in that, and then my DIY LED strips under the hood, total of 12 feet of those, but they were a cheap tape light, no PAR value available. It's funny though, I thought I did not have a green thumb, and I probably don't, but it's certainly not black, cuz I havent killed any plants yet, I have not dosed fertilizer, have no desire to do any co2, but all my plants do well. Except moss balls for some reason, so I guess I did kill two of those...

Anyways, I have the wild types in the tank with the yellow now. And I put all of my RCS back in the main tank, since the population went pretty nuts pretty quick. I think the tannins did it, cuz I put driftwood in, and they went like bunnies. But yea, the male just runs all over, swims in powerhead current, chases guppies (playfully, just following, not chasing in a threatening way), and mostly does his own thing. The wild female tries to pick at food, she LOVES snails eggs, which is AWESOME! My yellow, just chases the silver female. Everywhere. Sometimes she just follows, and sometimes she chases her very quickly around. But that's about all they do. Never seen them headbutt or nip at each other or anything.

I did tear the entire tank apart, and redid most of it, before putting the new honeys in, to try and make it like a "new tank" so they would have to all set up territories. I think it worked, because my yellow hasn't been hanging out in her normal spot anymore. No one has, as it has changed and it's now an open spot.

I'll put some pics, you guys can tell me if you think there are enough hiding spaces for them, or if I need to grab more hornwort from the other tank. Or maybe finally pull the trigger and buy frogbit online, lol.

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If you watch the gouramis, they will use their pelvic fins (feelers) to check each other out. :)
 
If you watch the gouramis, they will use their pelvic fins (feelers) to check each other out. :)

Yea, I've seen them do that. It seems like my yellow likes to chase the silver female, while flailing her feelers at the silver, almost like slapping her. It's kind of silly. The boy still does his own thing. It's funny though, cuz during the day, they are all 3 kind of all over, but silver chases male, and yellow chases silver, in between the females picking at food, and male just swimming erratically. Then at night, the two females bunch together in the hornwort, like roomies, while the male sleeps behind the suspended driftwood all alone.

No bubble nest yet either. And since the first day, I havent seen the male get all colored up like he did in "breeding" mode. I'm no expert, but from reading, it appears when their environment goes through a change, they tend to want to breed. I havent even done a w/c since putting them in, as I dont have several fry in there, and have been feeding only once per day. Aquariums are a LOT less stressful and less work, when you dont overfeed to grow guppy fry...:confused:
 
It sounds like the poor little male is being picked on by the 2 girls. They are giving him a hard time and because he is young, he is unsure about what to do.

He will regain his colour in a few weeks or months when he is feeling stronger and healthier. When he first got moved into the tank he probably showed off to try and dominate everyone in the tank. But you have a little lady that is in season and wants a man and she has stressed him out. He obviously doesn't like older women.

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To bring fish into breeding condition they need regular feeding with lots of variety of food, and lots of water changes, a bit like growing up baby fish. If you feed them 3-4 times per day and use frozen (but defrosted) or live foods, he will quickly come into breeding condition and probably get his colour back.

Some of the best foods to condition fish include: mozzie larvae, adult mosquitos, aphids, ant eggs, small moths & flies, newly hatched brineshrimp, microworms, raw or cooked prawn. Just make sure any live foods are free of chemicals and have not been caught with bug spray.

If you can't get the mozzie larvae or insects then use raw or cooked prawn/ shrimp. Get some prawn and keep it in the freezer. Take one out and defrost it under warm water. Remove the head, shell and intestine (long thin black thing in the body) and throw these bits away. Use a pair of scissors to cut the remaining bit of prawn into small bite size pieces. Offer a few bits at a time and feed until all the fish are full and no longer interested. Then stop feeding.

Because there is more food going into the tank, you will need to do more water changes and gravel cleans to compensate. However, adult fish usually have a lot less wastage than babies so there is usually less food to clean up afterwards.
 

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