What type of Gourami is this?

[Nebula]

I got this gourami a while back and was originally told it was a bronze honey gourami, however recently a dark black thick line had appeared on its belly going from the top of the mouth to where his/her tail begins, not only this but the shape of its rear has also changed slightly, I am concerned something could be wrong and wanna hear another persons opinion.

I have attached photo's of the mentioned gourami and also have a photo of 1 of my honey gouramis too.

Any help that can be given will be very much appreciated, thank you

 

[Colin_T]

You have 3 pictures of a male honey dwarf gourami that has coloured up into his adult colours. He is the one with the yellow dorsal (top) fin, orange body and dark brown section running from the mouth to anal fin.

The picture of the plain orange coloured fish is most likely a female honey dwarf gourami but one of the colour mutations.

 

[Essjay]

The male honey gourami (first 3 photos) is the natural wild colour. They are very hard to get where I live.

 

[Ch4rlie]

I concur that is indeed honey gouramis.

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/trichogaster-chuna/

I used to have some of these a few years ago.

Finding honey gouramis is easy enough, males pretty common to buy, females are harder to find. Well at least in my area anyway.

You will need to find at least 3 females to 1 male to achieve something of a harmony for these guys otherwise they will be pretty aggressive with each other.

This is one reason why I did not keep honey gouramis for very long, the aggression and trying to find more females.

The trouble is, when you’re at LFS and trying to ascertain between male and female honey gouramis in LFS tank is a toss of the coin as they tend to be very pale and the markings washed out due to stress and very hard to determine what gender individuals may be.

Easy to determine their gender is when they have settled and happy.

 

[Essjay]

I've had more trouble with females bullying each other than males pestering a single female.

Wild coloured honeys are easy to sex, even in shop tanks. Any gourami with even a hint of a dark stripe from nose to tail is female. Even if the fish is the colour of a female but doesn't have a stripe, it's male. This has worked every time for me. My current honeys came from a tank full of both males and females in my next to nearest Maidenhead aquatics, though I was very surprised to see them as they only usually stock yellow and red varieties. (I should say did because the garden centre this MA was in burned to the ground a week ago and the MA was destroyed along with all the fish )

The yellow variety is also fairly easy to sex, again by the presence or lack of the nose to tail stripe, and also males tend to have more orange in the tail area. I find the red variety impossible to sex.

 

[Nebula]

Thank you for the info guys its much appreciated it comforting to know that nothing was wrong with it and it had just gained its adult colour unfortunately as you all pointed out he ended up getting bullied a lot by the 2 females as I couldn't find a 3rd at my local fish store and unfortunately I found him dead yesterday afternoon

 

[Ch4rlie]

Sorry to hear that, it’s unfortunate but it’s the way that happens sometimes.

Are you planning to get more gouramis to up their numbers to spread the aggression and hopefully get that harmony that works?

 

[Nebula]

I probably will up their numbers tbf especially if it'll help spread the aggression and possibly create a type of harmony within my aquarium thank u for the tip its much appreciated

 

[Colin_T]

female gouramis shouldn't bully males.

make sure you have some plants in the tank, especially floating plants like Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides).

if you're concerned about ratios just keep 1 male and 1 female

 

[Ch4rlie]

if you're concerned about ratios just keep 1 male and 1 female

This won’t really work either as the male will continuously harass the single female, this happened when I kept gouramis.

This is why I say at least 3 females to 1 make, helps spread aggression but even then not guaranteed.

What does help is plenty of plants or decor to have broken line of sight and hiding areas where they can have their own areas.

Gouramis, imho, are amongst the worst bullies to each other, angels and tigers are another two species that are hard to keep without bullying occurring as well, there are other species of course but from my own experiences and learning those are top 3 for dominance or bullying amongst their own kind.

With a little research and know how these can all be kept very successfully and wonderful fish to keep, just a little extra care is needed