What Is She Up Too ?

[SHANTYMAID]

Hi hoping you can help me here with rather a puzzling development with my pearl gourami, she is in a tank with a goldern gourami and a couple of balloon mollys. The male molly has taken it into his head to go up to the pearl and rub against her going to and fro underneath her (he also does this to the female molly). Now my pearl has started to go vertical as he does this nose down everytime, she has never shown him any aggression. So please could anybody give me a clue to whats going on, any input would be appreicated.

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

Your molly is flirting with her and treating her as another molly. And she isn't saying no! She must be carrying eggs. It's what females do in order to let the male gourami wrap her up in a spawning embrace. Neither will come to harm by it assuming there's no aggression on either part and he doesn't harrass her. Obviously they cannot breed together either.
Hugs,
P.

 

[SHANTYMAID]

Aww thats love for you, thank you so much for the input at least now i have an idea to whats going on. Now i come to think about it her colouring has darkened slightly on her underside, she did have a bright orange edgeing now that has turned nearly red. I havent seen my golden gourami giving her any special treatment at all, the only new thing he has been doing is going into a barrel ornament, he stays in there for ages.
Once again thank you for the info, i'm going to follow this with great interest

 

[sylvia]

Lol - that's one thing I've never heard of happening IME mollies tend to dislike gouramies! And gouramies don't usualy go for inter-species relationships...

edit: Can you post a picture of your gouramies facing the side? I don't think your pearl is female going by your description.

 

[SHANTYMAID]

Hi i know what you are getting at there Silvia, i know the males have a orange colouring underneath deepening to a dark red as they mature. My pearl has a very thin line of colouring throat area though is silver but her tail is rounded no long finnage with trailing filiaments at the end which the males have. She is acting like i described nose down with her body vertical and what Dibs said makes a lot of sense, the mollys i have brought up since babys and he is a right little character who loves to go inbetween the two his female and my pearl. by the way he never seems to have any luck my female molly is just interested in feeding, but i will have to see if anything progresses. My golden gourami maybe will wake up and smell cockles if i'm lucky .
Thank you for all the input
shanna