# Do we have a male honey gourami?



## Lotzy (Jun 12, 2010)

We've always kept a pair of honey gourami and were once told by the aquatics centre that females start off with a pale black line along their bodies, so we've always tried to keep one of each or two females. Anyway, we've recently lost one and the other one was pining. Couldn't get another honey gourami this time, so thinking we had a female, we got a male dwarf gourami.

Anyway, it's day 3 and our honey was busy making a bubblenest yesterday and she(maybe he!) was rubbing herself up against the new male gourami. Just been doing some research which says it's the male that nest builds, is this correct? Do you think we have a male by his behaviour? Is there any way we can tell if the honey is a male, by colouring, shape of fins?

We were trying to avoid two males because of fighting, and luckily so far there has been any.


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## Fishyfins (Feb 28, 2009)

http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/fish-pictures/honey-gourami-1278013006-800.jpg

Honey gourami, the top is the male, the bottom is the female. though males, when stressed, do look like females, so in the dealers tank, they do usually all look female.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Male_female_dwarf_gourami.jpg

Drawf gourami follow the same basic rules. the females are drab than the more colourful males, but the males can look like females in the dealers tanks, so again, they can get confused.

Ive never, personally, heard of the two species interbreeding, though i suppose it might be possible, as the two are very closely related (both members of the Colisia genus), if you had a male and female. Bubblenesting and body shimmering/rubbing are certainly signs of males in the mating ritual, so im not sure. however, its usually reccomended you dont keep dwarfs and honeys together in the same tank anyway, because the norm is for them to be highly aggressive with each other :/


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## SammyJo (Oct 22, 2012)

I have two Honeys and two Dwarfs in a 160 Litre tank and there is no fighting or chasing, the four live together peacefully along with a pleco :001_smile:


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## Tobacat (Oct 24, 2009)

Thanks for your reply. Worked out we have a male honey, male dwarf and female dwarf. The males take it in turns to build bubblenests and spend a lot of time with eachother in the same area. They aren't interested in the female, so not sure what's going on!


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