Making The Best Of Some Bad Decisions (naive Fishkeeper)

if you taking fish back, I would get more cories. The bacteria that you've grown for the fish you have now should manage an extra few cories. They need to be in a group of at least six, and of the same species.

if you taking fish back, I would get more cories. The bacteria that you've grown for the fish you have now should manage an extra few cories. They need to be in a group of at least six, and of the same species.

I already have four panda cories in the tank, so the extra two will take me to six. I've got two neons (having lost some during the emergency tank change) so I'll be taking them back up to six as well, so that should keep everyone happy, assuming the four departures will do their part and get in the bags. Fingers crossed!

I already have four panda cories in the tank, so the extra two will take me to six.

Opps, sorry I missed that 

Glad to hear that you didn't have any problems netting your fish to go back to the LFS.
I hope that your new fish settle in tonight, and over the next few days.
It would be great to see some pics when everything is back to normal. 

p.s. perhaps a sturdy pair of safety goggles would be useful next time you have to take the elastic band off a fish bag 

Having resisted the urge to look around the other tanks (or, indeed, at the other tanks for sale...) I'm hoping that I won't need to contend with any more fiendish elastic bands for a while. I should have taken a pair of blinkers - there are so many gorgeous fish out there...

In many ways, I'm blessed by a lack of space! I'm sure I could find the money required, but I can't find space to fit in something over a metre in length no matter how hard I look - and yes, I already have looked for it!

So, remember yesterday when it was all "Good job, Fishbeard, you didn't go looking at other fish"?

Yeah. It didn't last.

I was in town this morning and went into P@H to get some more dechlorinator, as I'd forgotten to pick some up from the LFS yesterday (because I had my blinkers on). Whilst wandering, I went to see what they carried, having never actually been into our P@H before and spotted some red honey gouramis. The LFS only carries the yellow type, which have always looked a bit washed out to me, so I went over to inspect the red ones and immediately identified a pair at the bottom of the tank. Convinced this was a sign, I beckoned over the girl and, after much difficulty in stressing that I wanted two specific fish and not just any two, she was able to bag them and now they're swanning around in my tank.

I'm now going to buy all my fish-related products online. It's safer. I can't be trusted in shops. 

I wouldn't know where to begin with sexing fish, other than assuming that the female will be larger than the male. In the shop, these two kept moving around together and whenever another fish came close, one of them would chase the third fish away. Hopefully that's a sign that they get along?

Oh, and since Littlefish asked for a picture, I've tried to take one. It's not easy - I get a lot of glare, and that's to say nothing of the fish refusing to say cheese! I'm also stick with the camera on my phone, so it's not great, but if anyone has any photography tips then I'll happily try again tomorrow. The gouramis are especially camera shy - I was hoping to get a clear shot of them together to help someone that knows more than me try to sex them, but for now they keep lurking in the back.

The photo is great.

I use a camera on a tripod, and have the room in darkness with the tank lights on. That seems to cut down on reflections but it does lengthen the exposure time, meaning I get wobble blurring if I don't use a tripod, and the fish often come out as moving blurs.


Honey gouramis - and indeed all gouramis - don't pair up like cichlids. Two together doesn't necessarily mean a male and female. Size is not an indicator in shops as they are all young so the bigger fish could just be older. Once they are fully grown in your tank, one could end up bigger than the other.

Hmmm, it does look a bit like two males sizing up to each other. Keep an eye on them.

Look at the tail end of the long fin that runs under the body. In theory, in a female the very end of that fin runs vertically up towards the body while in a male, it is longer and curves back towards the head before it joins the body. This is not 100% guaranteed though.

Two gouramis just investigating do so face to face and touch each other with their feelers (actually modified pelvic fins). And then honey gouramis breed, the male displays to the female by swimming vertically, nose upwards, in front of her.