Question About Honey Gourami

[lym]

Does it matter what sex they are when they live in groups? Would they be ok as a group of males?

 

[sylvia]

Idealy you want more females than males if they are in a mixed group but in single-sex groups they are fine as long as there are at least 4 of them to divide the aggression up.

 

[Birdie]

I inadvertently did just the opposite of what Sylvia suggests so don't do what I did . The fish were rather colourless in the lfs, and instead of coming home with 2 females and a male as I intended, I ended up with two males and a female ( they coloured up very rapidly after I got them home) . It wasn't so good

The female (Vera) actually did most of the chasing initially ( although I am sure that woud have changed as the boys got bigger) and following Sylvia's as-always excellent advice, I returned one of the boys when the behaviour didn't settle down on its own. I had intended to return the smallest male (Jack), as he was the one that really seemed to get on Vera's nerves the most ( I don't know if it was something personal, or whether he was just particularly clueless about not invading her "patch" ) However, he was simply too quick and wily for me ( so not *totally* clueless ) - it took me thirty minutes even to catch his friend

I was a little wary about having a simple pair rather than a trio. I know it doesn't always work out, and I watched v carefully to see if the sitution worsened - or even if the tables were turned in a bad way. However, to my great surprise things settled down immediately. Vera stopped chasing Jack, Jack got even more colourful, and peace broke out all over. This week he has even built his very first bubble-nest. Frankly it was rubbish ( very straggly - 4/10 for style, and as it looks like Vera was probably equally unimpressed, 0/10 for content ), but I was thrilled to see that he was happy enough to actually build one, so I'm not complaining. (to be fair, I've read that honey's bubble nests are generally a bit on the messy side)