Markings on Honey gourami

[Karen B.]

Greetings!

One of my honey gourami has some « markings » on her body. Especially on her back, near her dorsal fin. It’s like a permanent brown scale. Is that possible? Or could it be a parasite or something? It wasn’t always there. But since it appeared, it doesn’t seem to bother her. 

Thank you

@laritheloud

[laritheloud]

@Hobbit had this on one of her honey gouramis and it never caused him any issues! In the meantime, I've kinda realized I must have a runt honey gourami because my little gold female doesn't look nearly that plump or big...

[Karen B.]

On 5/21/2022 at 3:29 PM, laritheloud said:

@Hobbit had this on one of her honey gouramis and it never caused him any issues! In the meantime, I've kinda realized I must have a runt honey gourami because my little gold female doesn't look nearly that plump or big...

Both my sunset female are like this! 

Maybe I overfeed them…? But they are not constipated.

I also think they are both full of eggs. They did lay a couple of time. Once was the day before mother’s day… but they ate the eggs by mother’s day. My gourami don’t have great parental instincts! 😅 I think they just like to breed. They chase the male to breed with him at times! And they take turns. While one is twirling with the male, the other is on stand by, waiting her turn…!

And another reason might also be because they are in my community tank with 8 very sexually active corydoras. They lay eggs everywhere, all the times. And since the female joined… I don’t see a single fry anymore! So I think they have many snacks on the side! 

I wanted few more corydoras because I upgraded to a 30 gallons so without doing much efforts, here’s what I collected.

I know all the eggs were not fertile but I ended up with 30ish fry. They are in a breeder box inside the aquarium, much to the frustration of my girls that would love their snacks (mind you, the day after I collected the eggs, there were many new ones in the aquarium 😅)

 

[Cory]

I think you're fine, probably just a genetic thing that the scale is a different color.

[Hobbit]

Yes, my little Dad Fish honey had a brown scale! He wasn’t born with it—it just developed one day. When he passed away, I went ahead and got out the microscope and the tweezers and pulled the scale off to see what was going on. Honestly, it just looked like a bunch of dirt had gotten stuck under it! The color didn’t seem native to the scale, and there weren’t any parasites or indication of damage. It never bothered him, so I came to think of it like a little freckle. ❤️

Wow, your honeys sound like they’re having a good time! 😄 They look very healthy!