Identify My Gourami Pls

[-germ-]

Argh!
Those aren't 12 inchers are they (please,please,please)?
Any commonly identifiable traits/characteristics i should be looking for on the gourami in order to identify as thick lipped?
They are much bigger than the dwarfs, the only other thing it may be, is if the female wild dwarves are female wild honeys, if such a thing exists?

 

[sylvia]

Female wild honeys are creamish in coloration with a dark horizontal stripe. Even those of different color morphs (such as red) look nothing like dwarf gouramies. I would think it's impossible to confuse them.

Wild-type female honey: http/www.aquariumfish.net/images_01/hone...mi_001_w270.jpg

Thick-lipped gouramies grow to 3.5" and are nice, peaceful fish. You're lucky if this is what you got. They should be fine with your existing fish as long as the tank's large enough to deal with the bioload.

Thick-lipped gouramies are sturdier in build, larger, longer and tend to have slightly different dorsal fin coloration to honeys (it looks more smooth in the thick-lipped). They look almost identical to certain honey morphs as juveniles - which is why they are easy to misidentify and are often mislabelled. Unlike male honeys, they will never develop a dark blue-black ventral coloration so if any of the fish develops this, it cannot be a thick-lipped.

But, like I said, if they are larger than the dwarfs, they are not honeys.

Thick-lips:
http/www.ryedaleaquaristsociety.co.uk/Q%20PIC%201.jpg
http/www.theaquarians.net/FishGuide/thic...d_gourami_2.jpg
http/z.about.com/d/freshaquarium/1/0/t/N/gourami03.jpg - dwarf above
http/www.aquahobby.com/img/Colisa_labiosa_1.jpg

 

[-germ-]

Sylvia forever the font of all gourami fish related facts!!!!
Cheers mate.... Looking at the pics and from what you mention about behaviour and the stripe i'm now convinced they are thick-lips.
Disclaimer; this is about the fourth species i've been 'convinced' that they are...
Yep, definately got two wild female dwarves as per your pic, no colour changing apart from stripe which reveals when excited.
One wild male dwarf, looks the same as females, slightly more streamlined, stripe shows more often and changes colour to orangey-red when excited/nervous. Apart from ventral (?bottom) fin which goes electric blueish.
The supposed honey dwarf females, are i think more likely straight dwarf females, less colour than fresh aquarium pic, almost no red striping but reasonable amount of blue, most agressive of my gourami?
Sound about right?
Much appreciated

 

[sylvia]

More or less right I think...
But I didn't post any dwarf photos... do you mean honey females?
If you can get pics of all of them, it would be easier to make sure. But if you think you've worked it out now, you probably have

 

[-germ-]

I hope i've worked it out
I'm off work from today but will post a new pic thread at the beginning of next week.
The female dwarves (i think ) were being sold as female honeys but they look the spitting image of male dwarf gourami just with less striking colouration....
Cheers for your help