Wild type honey gourami sexing

[Gigi]

When my dear Betta died of old age i wanted to try out honey gouramis. While i could get the standard golden, i saw these wild type honey gouramis. I never regretted it! At some hours of the day they change colors and they love to explore, hence why it difficult to take pictures of them in the right angle. They are piecefull and so far no sign of agression from either one of them. While i asked for a female and a male, there was 1 where you could clearly see he was a male, while the other had a stripe and less color. I wanted to breed them in the future but now they are a couple of weeks with me and now the one with the stripe developed some colors the same as the male. You could clearly see that the one that shows most of the stripe has sometimes a blue/grey face while the male is grey/black. There was one evening his whole face went black, truly a wonder to see. But they both now have black and yellow markings, and i cant depend on the one who shows the stripe the most is truly a female or another male. The male always swims around like he is racing while the other is calm. The one who is calm also has a smaller backfin then the male. So im not sure anymore if it is truly male/female or two males. While there is no agression between the two and like to interact with one another, i think by adding a female could change that, or it would be to busy in my aquarium if i added another gourami. Does somebody has any experience in sexing the wild type honey gourami?

[Gigi]

Here you can see the male coloring up more black while the one with the blue/grey face follows

[TOtrees]

I’ll add an opinion, that is somewhat informed, but I’m not an expert. I’ve kept honeys before, if that helps. 

I do think you have two males. Wild type honey gourami females stay quite silver for base color and the body line remains quite strong. The fact that your second fish is any shade of honey or yellow suggests male.

Could it be a sunset female? Yes possibly. But the last pic with the amount of black below and the contrasting brightness of the top of the dorsal fin on the second fish all say male to me.

I get that you want to eventually breed them, but are they causing problems now? Excessive chasing/aggression? 

[Colu]

@laritheloud is good at sexing gourami's 

[Gigi]

On 11/29/2022 at 2:42 PM, TOtrees said:

I’ll add an opinion, that is somewhat informed, but I’m not an expert. I’ve kept honeys before, if that helps. 

I do think you have two males. Wild type honey gourami females stay quite silver for base color and the body line remains quite strong. The fact that your second fish is any shade of honey or yellow suggests male.

Could it be a sunset female? Yes possibly. But the last pic with the amount of black below and the contrasting brightness of the top of the dorsal fin on the second fish all say male to me.

I get that you want to eventually breed them, but are they causing problems now? Excessive chasing/aggression? 

No hence im thinking of not adding another to the tank. Maybe then they will get agressive. I could be wrong ofcourse but id rather not have agression when a female is added, i also dont have a spare tank to seperate them. I can however put aside my wish for breeding if it is for the welbeing of my fish. So far they enjoy each others company but will leave each other if they want with no agression/chasing involved.

[laritheloud]

Both of these fish are male!

I’m also going to add they should be fine as a pair of dudes. Don’t add only one female or you will have issues.

[Gigi]

On 11/29/2022 at 6:28 PM, laritheloud said:

Both of these fish are male!

I’m also going to add they should be fine as a pair of dudes. Don’t add only one female or you will have issues.

Hey! As soon you said they were both males i decided better to be safe than sorry. I looked at their behavior longer and noticed this morning that the male that had a stripe was very dominant in my aquarium. He only bothered the other male once, but it was enough for me to notice that maybe there was more agression then i noticed. So i decided to scoop up the dominant male and went back to my fishshop. Normally they dont take fish back, but they remembered me and took back the male. Next we were 10 minutes watching the honey gouramis to fish out a female. Now i know for certain the difference between males and females. This one indeed has more silver and almost no color at all. She has been with me for a couple of hours now, and the male is now more at ease and not swimming around like it is a race. My aquarim is back in peace. Im sad that it did not realy work out between the two males, but if i did not spend the extra watch between them, i would have never have noticed the stress of the other male. So thank you for all the advice!

[laritheloud]

On 11/30/2022 at 11:20 AM, Gigi said:

Hey! As soon you said they were both males i decided better to be safe than sorry. I looked at their behavior longer and noticed this morning that the male that had a stripe was very dominant in my aquarium. He only bothered the other male once, but it was enough for me to notice that maybe there was more agression then i noticed. So i decided to scoop up the dominant male and went back to my fishshop. Normally they dont take fish back, but they remembered me and took back the male. Next we were 10 minutes watching the honey gouramis to fish out a female. Now i know for certain the difference between males and females. This one indeed has more silver and almost no color at all. She has been with me for a couple of hours now, and the male is now more at ease and not swimming around like it is a race. My aquarim is back in peace. Im sad that it did not realy work out between the two males, but if i did not spend the extra watch between them, i would have never have noticed the stress of the other male. So thank you for all the advice!

Just a heads up, you will see the male chase the female on and off when he's in a nesting mood. He'll chase, chase, chase, and then eventually bubble nest and try to lure the female to his nest. This is normal behavior and nothing to be concerned about. Good luck and enjoy your sweet fish!