How to tell which one is a female or a male?

[Catherine1994]

i'm new to having fish (Please excuse my english I normaly speak french). 2 of my gouramis are making a bubble nest.. and I was wondering what should I do about that.. I have 3 gouramis. The only one not making a nest is a dwarf (blue) and he couldnt care less about the two other lol. My question is, how can I tell which one is a female and which one is a male...?

here's my 3 gouramis

 

[FishGuest5123]

Can any gouramis members answer this one?

 

[Catherine1994]

 

[Catherine1994]

View attachment 94958 View attachment 94959

Maybe these screenshot of a video can help determine the sex. The last 2 pics are the same fish

 

[Essjay]

The red one and the striped one are both males. Females are never that colourful.

I think the plain blue one might also be a male, the powder blue colour variant. While it's fins are not as long as the other two, they have been bitten so could be longer than in the photo if they were whole.
However, it could also be a colourful female. While dwarf gourami females are usually plain silver, some have been bred to have light blue colouration. The pale blue one also looks thinner than I would expect a female to be.



But dwarf gourami males can be nasty to each other and to females. If a male wants to breed but a female is not ready he can damage her quite a lot. The bitten fins of the plain blue one do suggest nipping by one or both the other two.

 

[Catherine1994]

The red one and the striped one are both males. Females are never that colourful.

I think the plain blue one might also be a male, the powder blue colour variant. While it's fins are not as long as the other two, they have been bitten so could be longer than in the photo if they were whole.
However, it could also be a colourful female. While dwarf gourami females are usually plain silver, some have been bred to have light blue colouration. The pale blue one also looks thinner than I would expect a female to be.



But dwarf gourami males can be nasty to each other and to females. If a male wants to breed but a female is not ready he can damage her quite a lot. The bitten fins of the plain blue one do suggest nipping by one or both the other two.

Thank you!!! Thats very helpful. So I might go check for a female at the store. I have to chose the less colorful one if I understand haha (sorry for my english).

 

[Essjay]

Yes, females are usually silver.

But having 1 female with 2 or maybe 3 males is bad. There should always be more females than males because all the males will try to breed with her and probably kill her from stress.
More than 1 male in a tank is also bad unless the tank is very big because male gouramis will fight over territory.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Yes. @essjay is correct. Females are seldom colorful and if they are, it’s just like a female deer growing antlers. Very unusual.

(From https://www.liveaquaria.com/product/974/?pcatid=974)

This always helps me.

 

[Catherine1994]

So now that I hate 1 male gourami and 2 females. I bought a 30gallon tank. I would looove to put 1 betta, 2 mollies, some guppies, 4 corydoras panda and my gouramis all in the tank together. Do you think it could work out?

 

[Catherine1994]

So now that I hate 1 male gourami and 2 females. I bought a 30gallon tank. I would looove to put 1 betta, 2 mollies, some guppies, 4 corydoras panda and my gouramis all in the tank together. Do you think it could work out?

That I ***HAVE ** lol not "hate"

 

[Essjay]

I'm afraid it won't work.

Bettas and gouramis should never be kept together as they are both territorial and occupy the same are of the tank. There would soon be aggression between them. And bettas are best kept alone as they are not community fish.

Mollies and guppies need hard water with mollies needing very hard water All the other fish you name are soft water fish and are incompatible with mollies and guppies.



How hard is your tap water? This will decide for you which type of fish you can keep. Look on your water provider's website for hardness - you need a number rather than some vague words. And you need to make a note of the unit as there are several they could use.
If they don't give it, you could phone or email them; or take a sample of tap water to an LFS and ask them to test it for GH. Again, make sure they give you a number.

 

[Catherine1994]

Its says 35-40

 

[Essjay]

That is unlikely to be dH or it would be incredibly hard. We don't know the unit, but if it is mg/l calcium it is soft; if it's mg/l calcium carbonate it is very soft. Both of these are unsuitable for livebearers (molies, guppies) but fine for your gouramis and cories. It is also suitable for fish from south America and most of Asia so you could have a shoal of fish from either of those as well.
But as I said in my last post, not a betta. If you want a betta, get a tank around 5 gallons or 25 litres just for him.

 

[Catherine1994]

Okay thanks its mg/L hardness im in Canada.

 

[Essjay]

That will be mg/l calcium carbonate, which is the same as ppm. It's only the UK that uses mg/l calcium as far as I can find.

So very soft. The other unit used in fish keeping is dH, and your 35 to 40 ppm converts to 2 to 2.2 dH. if you look up any potential species on https://www.seriouslyfish.com/knowledge-base/ you'll find the hardness they need (and tank size etc) listed there. Some of their profiles use dH, some use ppm which is why you need to know both.