Chocolate Gourami Tank

[BigBossPants]

Hello!

I have a 70L bow front tank with 4 Chocolate Gourami, 2 Honey Dwarf Gourami, 1 Peppered Cory and 1 Bristlenose Catfish.

At the moment I have some Twisted Val, Mouses Ear, Java Fern, Java Moss and a bit of driftwood.

Filter is a bit budget at the moment but I'm waiting on a canister filter

I'd like to try and breed the Chocolate's, but I can't quite figure out how to sex them, maybe because they are still young. I heard that the males have more yellow on their anal fin, where on the fin is it??

Also, has anyone else bred them, and are there any plants anyone can recommend for them? I read they like heavily planted tanks, so I plan to build it up once I get the better filter. I've been doing 25 - 50% waterchanges once a week.

Thanks

BigBossPants

[Zev]

Male, first two pictures - has red on top and bottom of tail, and along the top of the dorsal and a thin band of yellow on the anal fin (in this type of fish I suppose the anal fin runs the length of the bottom of the fish!)

Female, third pic - no colouration on tail, and even more confusingly can have a thin line of red on the dorsal fin as well as a thin line of yellow on the anal fin. The anal fin is sometimes more mottled with brown than the male.

Males tend to chase the females around - seems to be a gourami thing - hence the females spend a lot of time hiding from them.

They like a well matured tank with soft/acidic water 27 - 28 deg C, PH 5 - 6.5, kH 0 - 4, GH 0 - 5, nitrate, nitrite and ammonia as low as possible. The more acidic and purer the water, the better the chances at breeding.

So RODI water is probably a good idea for water changes.