Newbie question - male and female gouramis

[Schlteacher]

This is probably a dumb question, but I can't find an answer anywhere. I've been looking into getting a pearl gourami as something of a centerpiece fish for my aquarium. I was thinking about getting a few of them, one male and two females, but when I called the fish store he said they are too young to tell and you would have to just put them in the tank and see what happens.

So...what if I buy three and they turn out to all be males? It just seems like a recipe for disaster. I don't have two other tanks to put the other two fish in if they would all turn out to be males. Is there some way around this problem that I have missed?

 

[Dallascowboys16]

This is probably a dumb question, but I can't find an answer anywhere. I've been looking into getting a pearl gourami as something of a centerpiece fish for my aquarium. I was thinking about getting a few of them, one male and two females, but when I called the fish store he said they are too young to tell and you would have to just put them in the tank and see what happens.

So...what if I buy three and they turn out to all be males? It just seems like a recipe for disaster. I don't have two other tanks to put the other two fish in if they would all turn out to be males. Is there some way around this problem that I have missed?

When you are attempting to get a certain number of each sex of a fish you usually buy a large group to maximize your chance for males and females. I would say 5 juveniles is a good number if you are attempting to get the two females and a male. From there you can thin out the group to get to where you want to be. I would check with your fish store to see if they will take back any spare fish you have after you get the group you are going for.