The lights are off in the QT at the moment, and there's a piece of card leaning against it to avoid scaring them. They are still stressed and hiding at the back. I bought a bunch of elodea (or whatever it's called these days) as it is a fast grower, and moved a lot of water sprite from the main tank. There is also a silk plant to give them something else to hide behind. I'll try to take some photos once they've settled a bit.
Our son got the keys for his new house last Friday so we and he have been moving his stuff from our house. Yesterday his spare bed was delivered so since we are retired and he would have to take a day off work, we drove down to wait for the delivery, taking the last car load of his stuff from the house (there's still stuff in the garage, and storage boxes behind the garage but they can wait). We have to almost pass my favourite LFS on the journey so we called in on the way home yesterday. Their pearl gouramis were too small to tell the gender, and they didn't have any of the other two species that I was considering. So this morning we got the bus to the Maidenhead Aquatics about 5 miles away, taking my insulated fish buying bag. They didn't have any of the other two either, but they did have larger pearl gouramis than the first shop, and of course at twice the price. I
think I've got a male and two females.
This Maidenhead Aquatics is in a garden centre that has just been taken over by Dobbies. Before that it was a Wyevale, and they took it over from a local garden centre group, Peter Barratt. When it was Peter Barrett, they had their own fish department with a poor reputation. When Wyevale took it over, MA took over the fish department. It's still the same MA staff now it's Dobbies. But because I spent so many years trying to avoid buying from Peter Barrett, doubting the fish quality from this place has become ingrained even though it's now an MA. That's why I set up the QT. The fish I was thinking of originally were featherfin rainbows, Iriatherina werneri, and this MA is the only shop I've ever seen with females. Naturally, by the time the QT was ready, they'd sold all the rainbows.
However my husband is happy - "at last, some fish I can see!"