Sexing honey gourami

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Ah, this was one big question I had. I have three honeys gouramis that are bright orange. Two of them have a dark black strip along their front bottom, while the other is solid orange. I was starting to think it might be sex difference, but now this thread has me thinking otherwise.

Anyway, although I am pretty new to fishkeeping, I'd like to try and breed some fish and was thinking of starting with these honeys.
 
If the dark black strips is from the mouth down under the front part of the fish, those are males. Females often have a darker stripe down their sides from mouth to tail. Look at the photos on Seriously Fish to see what I mean - they have photos of the natural coloured honey gouramis but not yellow honeys.


Yeah, two of mine have that low front stripe, so seems they are males. The third one has no stripe at all, and I'm wondering if it not quite mature. I bought it only a week ago, and the others took some time to develop the striping.
 
If it's new it won't have settled in yet. But a stressed female usually has more of a stripe than a settled female.

What colour variant are they? The female's stripes are less obvious in some colours.
 
If it's new it won't have settled in yet. But a stressed female usually has more of a stripe than a settled female.

What colour variant are they? The female's stripes are less obvious in some colours.

I don't know the exact color variant. They are a mild orangish-yellow. Not those red sunset fellows.
 
Wild coloured males are a sort of golden tan. The other colour variant is yellow - and definitely yellow; though males often have orange tails their bodies are yellow.

This is a male of the yellow form I had several years ago to compare with yours
honey gourami male.JPG
 
Wild coloured males are a sort of golden tan. The other colour variant is yellow - and definitely yellow; though males often have orange tails their bodies are yellow.

This is a male of the yellow form I had several years ago to compare with yours
View attachment 111621

Yep. I have two that look very similar to that. So they are males of the yellow variant then.

And the third is a little smaller and not yet showing any stripe at all. Hopefully it's lady.
 
Since you've only had the fish a week, time will tell.

This was the female I had at the same time as the male
honey gourami female.jpg
 

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