laritheloud

I have 4 kuhlis in quarantine right now, a 10 gallon, and they rarely hide. They're always out doing laps around the tank, even with plants and hiding spots. Is this normal? First time loach keeper!

When I was just starting out I panicked about hydra... but tbh they haven't really caused issues in any of my tanks, including my neocaridina shrimp tank. I don't have a massive population and if I see more than the norm, I just cut back on feeding a little.

Nope. But Colombian Giant Ramshorns (Marisa Cornuarietis), now... they slurp baby bladder and ramshorn snails right out of their shells. They leave the bigger ones alone.

I have frozen mysis shrimp but haven't fed them too much yet! I tend to default to frozen daphnia. I haven't seen the presentation but it's on my list. Life's been crazy this season. I'm pretty sold on the Hikari betta pellets and I'll probably be picking those up to add to the rotation. Fingers crossed the little guy does well. They're such pretty fish, and you know I love my anabantoids 😂

I hope Hugo pulls through! I know he's been through so much, what a wonderful little guy. We love Bug Bites as a biweekly treat for our gouramis, it doesn't surprise me that bettas would love them too 🙂

I'm totally familiar with anabantoid constipation 🤣 Used to happen to Lady Marmalade my first thicklipped gourami before I worked out an appropriate feeding regimen. I know now to be conservative with the pellets and to rotate spirulina in with the mix!

Love all of this! We already have Fluval Bug Bites and Xtreme Nano Pellets so maybe I don't need to purchase a separate food for him... though I have to admit, the temptation is really, really high to buy a betta pellet. 😝 I also regularly feed frozen daphnia to my gouramis, so I'll try it with the betta too.

I have a handsome plakat fella I'll be picking up and introducing to a ten gallon tank in early January! This fish is for my son, who chose the beautiful blue and yellow marble color. It'll be our first betta, and I hope he turns out to be healthy for us. All the struggling health with these guys scares me a bit, not going to lie! That set aside, does anyone have a favorite food to feed their betta fish? If i were a reasonable person I'd just feed a variety of all the foods I already have. But... you know, I baby my fish, so I have to know exactly what your bettas love to eat. 😝 Open to hearing any tips and suggestions for a happy betta boy!

Of course, @Hobbit! I'm so glad your observations are consistent with mine! After this many months watching my gouramis and getting all the colorways in one tank, I thought it'd be nice to put this together and clear up confusion about these wonderful fish. Lord knows it took me this long to feel confident enough about my subdominant male, and there wasn't much information or photographic documentation out there about how the different sexes can look and behave in a tank. Side-note -- we are actually just getting started on our chicken-rearing journey after a stray 'adopted' us. We still haven't successfully coaxed her into a brand-new coop and run, but we're feeding her, looking after her, and providing her a nesting box in our garden for now. Hoping when we expand the flock in spring she'll join them!

I think it looks like a definite male/female pair if they're of breeding age -- looks combined with behavior seals it for me. Congratulations! 🙂 As far as breeding, reducing surface flow and raising the temp are both good. You can try reducing the water level a bit and covering the tank to make sure the air is nice and humid. Feed generously with frozen/live foods and high-quality prepared foods, and outfit the tank with floating plants and dim lighting. Fingers crossed! Sometimes gouramis take their sweet time making a perfect bubble nest.

Of course, @ari! I agree, it sounds like two females. On the bright side, two females will give you an extremely peaceful, sweet little tank. 🙂 My females are adorable little fish! As far as finding males, gold-type honey males are the easiest to spot, and it's best done in person. Wild types are difficult to sex in store because the entire tank looks almost the same, and you'll have to carefully examine what the employee catches. I hope you're able to find one someday! Gouramis are the best.

Hi @ari! From your photos, they both look female to me, but they also could still be young. The signs that are saying 'female' are the shape of the body (belly, tapered nose, tapered caudal peduncle) and the way their stripe passes all the way through their gill plates and wraps through the snout. I'm also seeing some orange rims on the fins. My male wild-type tends to look quite a bit darker when he's at rest than my female. As they settle, they will likely start to look like my wild-type female. She looked almost exactly like yours when she was alone. How long have you had your two beauties? Talk to me a bit more about their behavior. Does either of them chase the other, or are they mostly puttering around the tank and looking for food? My dominant male went nuts chasing everyone his first day then calmed and only chases the female honeys now. My subdominant, milder male would chase a female away from food and his resting spot, but most of the time he keeps to himself like the shy boy he is. Also RE: your thicklips, they are also great fish, but you were right to return them. A 16 gallon is enough for only one thicklip. They don't reach five inches, but they can get between 3 and 5 inches and need more space than a 16 gallon holds for a pair. I'd say the smallest you can go for a pair of thicklips is 20 gallons, but I'd probably steer towards keeping two females and no males in that size. EDIT: I'm going to say that the bottom pic is definitely a female. The top one is probably a female, but could be an extremely young male. If it is a male, the behavior will tip you off, and he will color up soon. I would not count on a male/female pair and assume the two are female unless one starts showing more distinct male-pattern color and behavior.

Glad to help, @Streetwise! It can be so hard to sex a honey gourami and tell what you're looking at in a store, especially since thicklipped gouramis sometimes get sold under the honey label. It's really hard to find good information about sexing online, too, and I think it's always helpful to know what species and sex you have! I figured a side-by-side of photos can help other folks out.

I'm going to follow up with a bit more information now that the tank has settled for a few days! Some info: Males will 'patrol' a tank and chase females to show their 'affection.' Females are more interested in nibbling food in peace than in paying any attention to males. Females will work out their place in the social hierarchy with mild circling and fin-flaring. Two males will spar more vigorously than a female with a female. Neither should result in actual harm, just a bit of chasing and then they settle. A male and a female will 'dance' side-by-side for quite a long time as a part of courtship. Sometimes they'll flop on top of each other on the substrate before resuming. They're fine. Females can be distinguished from males by their body shape and tapered faces. They tend to have 'cinched' caudal fins and more of a belly, along with a narrower nose/snout area. Males tend to have blunter faces and more ovular/rectangular body shapes. Some may have a belly if they're well-fed, but proportionately, the caudal peduncle will not be as cinched as a female. Now for photos! Thicklip gourami male: Thicklip gourami female. Note the thicker belly area and narrower nose/caudal peduncle: Wild Type Honey Gourami FEMALE, settled and well-colored. By herself in a separate tank she is silver with orange-rimmed fins; this is the most intense she colors. Sometimes her stripe down the midline will darken and stretch THROUGH the gill plate and in front of the eyes: Golden Honey Gourami FEMALE: Wild Type Honey Gourami SUBDOMINANT Male. Note the blunter face and the lemon yellow top fin. Stripe along the body is visible on most occasions, but when you compare him to the female wild type, the dark black throat has an outline that extends over his face and eye (while for the female, it's restricted to the anal fin). The orange also gets much more saturated on and off, and it changes within a span of seconds: And finally, our dominant Golden Honey Gourami Male:

All meds are now finished in all of my established, stocked tanks, with the last dose of Levamisole administered on Friday and PWC'd out on Saturday. I started Oxytetracycline feed last Sunday and finished the course at Day 9, yesterday. I was tempted to do one more day but ended up letting them eat their regular diet. Color has returned to the fish I was concerned about, and the gills have healed. 1 Rabbit Snail has died. The others are still in a questionable state, but I've ordered Devil Spike Snails to try next. We'll see! If any of these rainbows start to show problems again after this, I'll scoop them out and move them to my 20 gallon long quarantine. They can live out their lives in a 20 just fine at their size. Fingers crossed that I can move on now and breathe some sighs of relief.

Male/Female gourami dynamics are just kind of like that. The male will sometimes chase the females around. Getting more females means he'll only sometimes chase each one. Getting a larger group could help to alleviate this; I have two males and two females, my one male chases, my second male is subdominant and only chases when he's guarding a little bit of food he wants, and my two females show no real signs of stress when they're being chased. They go right back to nibbling on plants and overall enjoying life. 🙂 Sometimes, especially during feeding time, they'll hang out together and eat together, but mostly you'll see the fish doing their own thing unless they want to breed. I see this in my Honey Gouramis, and I see this with my thicklip gouramis. The difference between my honeys and thicklips is that my thicklips tend to be more interactive and more outgoing. I actually witness my group of thicklips swimming in a group together during water changes and at random times throughout the week much more often than honeys, who mostly do their own thing unless they're eating together. BUT I've had my group of 4 thicklips together for a bit longer than my 4 honeys. I just added my fourth one to the honey tank a few days ago. They might end up with a similar dynamic once she settles. I just want to reassure you that this is all very normal behavior so you can set your expectations right. Your male with the black on his throat means he's in a breeding/courting mood, but it won't necessarily result in a successful mating. It'll depend on if he can build a successful nest and coax a female over. I hope this helps! EDIT to add: Your tank is beautiful and I'm sure they appreciate all those plants very well!

Nah, ramshorns, once in your tank, are bulletproof. I absolutely love them. Now that you have one you'll have plenty in no time. If you want to keep them fed, you can sprinkle in some invert food if you'd like, or add a wondershell for minerals in the tank, but they should really be just fine on clean-up, algae, and biofilm. 🙂 Enjoy!

Her name is Agnes! 😝 We STILL haven't wrangled her into the coop yet, so if you have any chicken-catching tips, I'd love them. We're trying traps (she won't go in), we tried grabbing her off her roost (she flew away).... She won't leave the tiny little area she's carved out in my garden.

Updating with pictures of my wild type pair!!! Female on top two pics, subdominant male in the bottom two, not fully colored. Plus male mid courtship display

So long as the ORANGE color is rimming the top of her dorsal fin, yes! It should be fine. You will know immediately if she turns out to be a he, but I’m reasonably sure she is female. I just put a wild type female in with my other honeys and she only faintly intensified in color, no beard.

Hi, Karen! I watched the video and it looks to me like your male is extremely excited to have a lady with him. The 'swimming with his head up' is a male courtship/dominance display, depending on the context. He's tilting upward to show off his black beard and entice the lady. 🙂 Males do chase ladies away from 'their' nesting corner, and they do it vigorously. This is also normal and nothing to worry about. They should never actually hurt one another and eventually, he'll try to entice the lady to come to him while she gives him a look like, "Mmmmm nope" and continue nibbling at plants and decorations. Honey gouramis can cohabitate with multiple males without true violence or drama. The extra male becomes more reserved and doesn't show his colors as much, and might look a bit mopey/act shyer. As long as there is enough space, honey gouramis are the only gouramis I can think of where you won't have real drama with multiple males.

I know exactly what you mean and I'm like this with all of my animals. Case-in-point: a lost chicken wandered onto my property, and after no one in town claimed her, I decided the best recourse was to get a chicken coop and run and adopt her as my own rather than turn her into animal control or a local farm. 😅 If you have one, the local fish club is a good idea that could give you some reassurance.

Unfortunately @Anitab it's probably not fixable. If he can't eat and it hasn't fixed itself, he will waste slowly away. You can try a treatment separately if you'd like, but I ended up euthanizing when I saw this problem with my endler.

@Karen B. Congratulations, you have two females and one male! The two females are both gold-type honey gouramis. 🙂 They are so sweet! The body shape on your new female screams 'lady' to me. Female honey gouramis have a different body shape and face to males. I almost think they look more docile and sweet at a glance, lol! Males have a slightly blunter face in comparison to females. Also just FYI, I think in a 20 you can squeeze in a group of 4, so even if you did have two males you could try to add one more female. I ended up with two males in a 29 gallon (I ... THINK we have decided our wild-type is actually a male) and they do not hurt each other, though one is clearly the dominant boy. We are adding an extra 100% female to the mix, though, and I'll update accordingly. EDIT to add: They should be able to cohabitate just fine! Bear in mind that male gouramis get a bit rowdy and will chase away females from 'their' corner (potential nesting spot) and possibly from some food. This is normal. It will not get violent, it's mostly short spurts of chasing, and just make sure you have plants and line-of-sight breaks for everyone. Update: We are now quite sure he's a very reserved male 😅 I've witnessed the entire body go orange and black, but not super bright. Sub-dominant colors. Just goes to show you -- We've had these fish for 9 to 10 months and we just now figure our wild type is a male.

Any antibiotic in the water column has the potential to crash a cycle, especially one that hasn't been established for a long time. I would do frequent water changes and treat the fish as he needs, and when he seems to be on the mend, keep up the frequent water changes until parameters stabilize.