Indentifying your colisa sex

[Christmasfish]

Colisa males have one thing different from 4 months on..that is body shape...
then soon after the fins start elongating to a point more clearly.
This applies to most popular gourami types.
Many times a tank trouble making female are actually a male that was not yet colored, babdly coloered, sick or stressed. Colore is not the best judge..females are almost never highly colored...but males can drab down to female coloration. Specially young ones.
So here smallfry..as I said I would: id reference

 

[smallfry]

Thanks as always! (since I already returned the bully I won't know for sure if it was female...but I will use your very well drawn guide for future reference)

 

[grimlock3000]

Your drawing is very nice, however it never actually says which is male and which is female, just shows the differences

 

[smallfry]

Don't worry...I know what she meant. The longer one with the pointy fins is the male...

 

[smallfry]

Male - Left
Female - Right

 

[smallfry]

I think I need to be put in a "time out" corner... sigh

 

[Christmasfish]

Your drawing is very nice, however it never actually says which is male and which is female, just shows the differences

Heh.....! Doh..Since the verbalizing was in a PM I forgot to repeat it!:
And thanks, it was done on paint a' la etch-a-sketch method ^_^

Males have a longer body (better to wrap you, my dear)
larger adult size, better coloration and the Dorsal(top)&Anal(bottom) fins taper to a point than flows towards the caudal(tail) fin. The more mature the specimin the more obvious the point. Gourami on the viewer's left shall be the male....
Gourami on viewer 's right is the typical female (can't cover every angle like malformations...^_^)

 

[Christmasfish]

time for a new installment: watch this space

 

[Christmasfish]

Part 2- the larger trichogasters

Here we go... I had some distractions last night

Sexing the larger genus trichogaster (guess chuna are no longer colisa nowadays..they should be sexed like colisa still): families :
the Moonlight, Snakeskin, Thick lipped(aka banded), Mosaic (now called pearl -T.leeri) and all morphs of the 2Spot/3 Spot (T. trichopterus) and the Horned (think it is a betta now) and the Tabbi(forest mosaic).

Juveniles are hard to sex unless a male starts showing early traits.
Though breedable as "teens" they are not truly mature in traits until nearer to 5 inches (Like breeding your 1 year old Great Dane in her second cycle).
Though the accepted size for these fish is now 6 inches, wild caught specimins are still 8-9 inches. My lfs has 6 blues of this range in size even as I type this.
With todays stunted and short-lived population, I will guesstimate an adult to be about 16-24 months old since the age now given for many sources is 3 years. I personally knew some 13 year old fish and many stil go on record as living 10.

In general, males are slimmer and longer with more ornamental finnage, the fins develop into elongated points especially the top and bottom. They often have a trim of bright yellow or platimum along the fin edges in males of .trichopterus; .leeri and .pectoalis
Some varieties are more dimorphic than others. Juvenile males can still masquerade as female and color is never a good indicator in most labyrinths, since mood, health and age are always factors there. Elderly gourami often take a dusky, blackened color. Ill or frightened fish become paler and dull colored.
It is easier to tell the differences in younger fish when they are still in a group. Older fish become more obvious in time.

 

[smallfry]

Very informative, Thanks! (I'm going to call you "encylopedia" from now on)