Is He Just Gay?

[fishwatcher]

I recently got a new male dwarf gourami, and he's doing great. He has been working non-stop on a big beautiful bubble nest for the last 3 days. I have 2 females in with him (they are in a 20g with a few harlies and kuhli loaches). The problem I see is that he wants nothing to do with either female. I'm not sure why, as they are quite pretty little things! But he chases them away anytime one of them comes near. Is this normal? While I've had single males before I've never had females until just about a month ago, and then got the male last week, so I've never seen them interact before.
I don't really care if they have babies (I imagine the other fishies would take care of most of them anyway), but I just don't know what the normal routine is for these when it comes to mating.

 

[vinylman]

I don't really care if they have babies (I imagine the other fishies would take care of most of them anyway)

I wouldn't put money on it; on the brief occasion I kept three Dwarf Gourami, they killed my ten Cardinal Tetras.

 

[fishwatcher]

Wow! And here I thought they were so cute and innocent! LOL
Do you know how long it will take before big daddy likes the looks of one of the girlies and quite chasing them away?

 

[linda1503]

My guppy male did the same thing, totally ignored 2 females that I put in! Then 3 days later he must have thought to himself 'Hello' 'how the hell did I miss you two georgous ladies'!! Now they are both preggers!

 

[fishwatcher]

Cool... I'll just light some candles, dim the lights and see how it goes then!
Thanks!

 

[QuotheRaven]

My experience with dwarf gourami's is they are quite aggressive...that is the one I owned kept attacking my angelfish alot

 

[dthoffsett]

Cool... I'll just light some candles, dim the lights and see how it goes then!
Thanks!

Don't forget to play some Barry White for them too.

 

[lilmisshertz]

Hahaha
Seems like he is playing hard to get!! ...isn't that normally the other way round
Good luck! Hope he realises what beauty's he has!

 

[fishwatcher]

So far he still just chases them away... idiot....
One is a solid silver, the other is has faint stripes on her and a rather dark spot at the base of her tail. He actually has them hiding now. They won't come out to swim until it's feeding time. I'm not sure what to do now.

 

[PRW1988]

hmm... unfortunatly, if this was me I'd remove the male into an isolation tank for a short period of time (like 1-2weeks) and then re-introduce him to the tank once the females are back out again, if the problem preseisted I'd get rid of the dwarf gourami, that or just set up a 10gallon tank for him and a few other little fishies...