Picked up a couple of Honey Gouramis

[Tacit Blues]

I got a gift card to the LFS for my birthday, so I decided to branch out from the South American fish I have generally always kept and got what I think is a male/female pair.

 

[goatnad]

Nice I love gouramis and think those sunset honey gouramis are just beautiful. If you could post some side pictures of the pair we might be able to sex them for you.

 

[Tacit Blues]

Yeah, I’m going to try for more pictures, right now they’re still pretty camera shy though. I had her pull out one this one that’s pretty obviously a male, and then the only one that I could see in the tank that was paper and had a hint of a dark line down the side, which I remembered from reading as a female trait. I’ll update with more pictures as I’m able.

 

[Tacit Blues]

The male:

The female:

Both together:

 

[goatnad]

im going with both are males. here is one way to sex them. male dorsal fins will be pointed and females will be rounded. you wont find many females being sold since they keep most females as breeders.

 

[Tacit Blues]

In my reading, I have seen several places say that the female has a brown stripe down the side, which is what I was going off of here.

 

[MattS99]

With honeys you want to go with dorsals for sexing. Both look like males to me. Which is fine, honeys just like having company, they don't discriminate male and female.

 

[Tacit Blues]

So, another question: the bright colored one has built a bubble nest, and he’s pretty content to just sit near it and guard it. Will they do that even if there’s no female?

 

[goatnad]

Yes. When they get to breeding age they will make bubble nest no matter what.

 

[Tacit Blues]

Cool. I was looking on aquabid, there’s some sellers who are selling females. That might be a thing to do in the future...

 

[goatnad]

Cool. I was looking on aquabid, there’s some sellers who are selling females. That might be a thing to do in the future...

Good plan. Also watch your fishes behaviour. If the bright on is coming up along side the stripe one and flares fins along with rubbing against it then you just might have a female. You are right about the female usually having the stripe but males can have it also. Good luck and keep us updated.

 

[Tacit Blues]

So, I made a little video about them. Near the end, I managed to get them kind of swimming with each other, the orange one following the striped one around.

https://youtu.be/59Qaxo3TsMo

I'm not sure if it's quite what you were describing, and it's not great quality video since they would stop doing it if I got closer, but maybe?

 

[goatnad]

That behaviour is making me think the striped one isn't to happy being with the more aggressive one. Mating would look like this https://youtu.be/FhR803gWC_c

 

[Autumnsky]

The more pointed look of both fish's dorsal fins seems to be male.

In the event that this is accurate... The not dominant male, here is posing to look as unthreatening as possible. And appears in the stress to look more female as a coping mechanism of not looking like a threat and getting attacked by the boss fish.

 

[Tacit Blues]

Ok, that makes sense. I’m going to be on the lookout for females, I think. They really do seem to interact peacefully for the most part, and there’s lots of hidey holes in the tank.

 

[Tacit Blues]

Haven’t heard back from the seller yet, but last night I put in a bid for a male/female pair of these guys. In the listing they said that more are available, so I asked if I could double the order. We’ll see what happens!

 

[Tacit Blues]

Two pairs, heading my way.