Animals
Bunnies
Bunnies II 
Chinchillas
Degus
Ferrets
Ferrets by BOB
Gerbils
Ground Squirrels
Guinea Pig
Hamsters I
Hamsters II
Hamsters III
Hamsters IV
Hamsters V
Hedgehogs
Kittens
Kids & Kittens
Mice
Mice Pets II
Parasites
Rats I
Rats II
Rats III
Rats, Hairless
S-T Opossums
Siberian Chipmunks
Sugar Gliders
Sugar Gliders II
Water Bottles

Bugs
Crabby 500
Crab 04 Results
Centipedes
Cray/Lobsters
Crayfish II
Crayfish III
Cray, Yucatan
Fiddler Crabs
Shrimp, Algae
Shrimp, Aqua
Shrimp, Red
Shrimp, Flower
Shrimp, Ghost
Shrimp, Rudolph
Hermit Crabs
Hermit Crabs II
Madagas Roach
Mantids
Mini-Clams
Mini-Crabs
Patriot Crabs
Giant Millipedes
Red Claw Crabs
Reiman Butterfly
Snail, Apple
Snail, Colombian
Snail, Land
Snail, Malaysian
Snail, Mystery
Snail, Trapdoor 
Scorpions
Tarantulas
Tarantulas II
Tarantula Night 2006
TarantulaWeen VII
TarantulaWeen 9
Misc. Bugs
Misc Bugs II  

Birds
Breeding Tips
Button Quail
Canaries
Cockatiels
Dove, Diamond
Dove, Ringneck
Finches
Love Birds
Parakeets
Pelleted Foods
Quaker Parrots
Parrot Pictures
Parrot Pix II
Parrot Pix III
Dave's Parrots

Lizards
Alligators
Anoles
Bearded Dragon
Beardies II
Calotes
Chamel, Jackson
Chamel, Panther
Chamel, Veiled
Crested Geckos
Gecko, Golden
Gecko, House
Gecko, Leopard
Gecko, Tokay
Horned "Toads"
Iguana New
Iguana Dragons
Iguana Q&A I
Iguana Q&A II
Iguana Training
Iguana Update
Cool Iguana Pics
Knight Anoles
Monitors, Nile
Monitors, Savana
Monitors, Water
Salmonella
Skinks
Skinks Blue-Tongue
Tegus
Uromastyx maliensis
Water Dragon
Misc Lizards
Misc Lizards 2
Misc Lizards 3
Misc Lizards 4
Misc Lizards 5
Misc Lizards 6
Misc Lizards 7
Misc Lizards 8
Misc Lizards 9


Snakes
Anacondas
Boa, Rosy
Boa, Red-Tail
Corn Snake
Garter Snake
Green Snake
Kids/Corn Snakes
Kids/Red-Tail Boas

Kids at Pet Expo 1

Kids at Pet Expo 2

Kids at Pet Expo 3

Kids at Pet Expo 4

Kids at Pet Expo 5
King & Milk
Python, Ball
Python, Burmese

Snakes Alive
Snakesgiving
Snakesgiving II
Misc Snake Pix
Misc Snakes II
Misc Snakes III  

Turtles/Tortoises
Box, Asian
Box, USA
Races
Snapping

Sulcata
Water
Western Painted

Live Foods
Blackworms
Blood Worms
Br Shrimp I
Br Shrimp II
Crayfish 1
Crayfish 2
Crayfish 3 
Crickets
Daphnia
Earthworms
Feeder Goldfish
Fruit Flies
Ghost Shrimp

Glass Worms

Grindal Worms
Infusoria
Mealworms
Microworms
Rosy Reds

Super Worms

Wax Worms
White Clouds

Decorating
Bubbles
Driftwood
Gravel
Plastic Plants
Rocks
Slow Growing Plants

Miscellaneous
Bob's Acclimation

How to Start
How to Add New Fish
How to Keep Healthy
Which Fish Get Along?
10 Questions to Ask
What is Ich?
Under Gravel Filters

Sponge Filters
Cloudy Water
Cool Water Tanks
Gravel Vacuums
Preventing Disease
Feeding to the Max
Frozen Foods
Green Water
Nasty Chemicals
Overfeeding
Power Filters
Rift Lake Salts
Quarantine Tank
Mini-Tank
2nd Av Bait

Pet World Visit
Dandelions

Aquatic Plants
Amazon Swords
More Swords
Sword Plants III
Anubias
Aponogetons
A. boivinianus
A. fenestralis
A. ulvaceous
Aquarium/Bog
Banana Plant
Bolbitis
Bunch
Bunch Plants II
Cryptocorynes
Crystalwort
Dwarf Lily
Grassy
Grassy II
Hornwort
Hygrophila
Lace
Java Lance Fern
Java Moss
Moss Balls
Onion
Vermiculite
Watersprite

Origin.  Blues came from the wild originally, of course.  But because they breed so easily, they’re all raised on farms today.  All the other color varieties (same exact species) come from fish farms (Asian and Floridian).  They all breed together (look at the lavender for example), because they’re the same exact species.

Blue Gouramis include the three-spot, Cosby, Stafford, opaline, gold, purple, amethyst (have not seen these for a long time), lavender, and platinum gouramis.  They’re all the same species (T. trichopterus) and thus all breed together.  This group consists of the easiest and most reliable spawners of all the gouramis.

LA Pic
Blue Gourami.  The original.  Tough medium-sized cookie.  Able to survive in non-heated aquaria.  Males get pushy.  Note short top fin on this female and egg-filled belly.  A variant
of this color without the spots was called the Stafford gourami for a while.

Breeding.  Refer to Pearl Gourami page (another Trichogaster but not the same species).  If you separate your male and female for a week, and condition them on three feedings a day, they will usually breed within a couple days after you put them together.  

LA Pic
Compare prior gourami color to this one in spawning colors.

2004 Note:  Go to spawning blue gouramis for a look at these easy spawners at work.

LA Pic
Female blue in front.  Male lavender in back -- in breeding colors.

LA Pic
Five-inch male blue gourami.  Nice yellow highlights.

Sexing.  Males grow a longer dorsal fin -- twice as long as the females.’  Females grow a plump belly that looks like they swallowed a marble.

Temperature.  We maintained an accounting firm’s 55 for a year in the old days.  Their building dropped their temp to 55 on the weekends.  The only survivors were the blue gouramis.  Don’t torture yours like they did.  Keep yours around 75^o or at 80^o if you want to spawn them.

LA Pic
Young opaline gourami male in breeding color.  Probably the first color variant to
appear on the market.  Note the dots along his side.  Sometimes he's called the
marbled gourami.  Some call him the Cosby.  Hey, hey, hey.

LA Pic
Females going to top for air.  No three-dots on either gal.

Belly Hairs?  Tricho (hair) + gaster (belly) describes lots of different gourami species.  They do have two hair-sized fins they use for communication with each other.  Just like the phone company says, “Reach out and touch someone.”  But belly-hairs do it for free.

LA Pic
Female dark gold gourami.  Some strains are lighter.  Some darker.  The lightest ones gave
rise to the platinums.  Male golds often sport a red eye.  Males usually darken more.

LA Pic
Five-inch female gold gourami full of eggs.

LA
Four-inch very obvious male gold gourami.

Foods.  If it comes in a can, pouch, or jar, Trichogasters will eat it.  They like frozen and live foods even better.  Theoretically, they even eat hydra if you starve them enough.  We’ve tried to see that happen with zero results.  No big deal.  No one gets hydra these days.  Didn’t Hercules wipe out the Hydra long ago?

LA Pic
Platinum gouramis.  Note the gold highlights.  You will often see gold highlights on
breeder blue gouramis.  The white marbling indicates an opaline origin.

LA Pic
Five-inch platinum gouramis are not really pink.

Attitude.  Males can get rowdy in smaller tanks -- especially at breeding time.  In larger tanks you will see no problems.

LA Pic Lavenders look like a cross between an opaline and a gold.  You be the judge.  These
usually cost slightly more because they appear on the market at a larger size -- often
at breeder size, like these fresh-out-of-the-shipping-bag guys.  After re-conditioning, the males often develop blue bars.  Color foods help.

LA Pic
Not looking quite so good when she contracts ich.

LA Pic
Males in spawning color look great -- even at this young (two-inches) age.

Size.  We see reports from several other countries that these guys grow to 15 cm -- what we call six inches.  Haven’t seen any that size on this side of the Mississippi River.  Most of ours top out around four inches.  The Krauts do keep theirs in larger tanks, nicht wahr?  So do the Dutch.  Even the Italians agree on 15 cm.  Maybe we need to start keeping larger tanks?  All these reports cannot be plagiarizing each other. Or can they? A bunch of them did use the same yucky pictures.

Last Words.  When gouramis get shipped a long distance (like from Florida or other foreign countries), they often arrive in brown water from the waste products they excrete en route (as the French say).  Their water would kill most species.  Treat them for velvet when you get yours home and do not buy “wobblies.”  LA

© 2003, © 2004, © 2005 LA Productions

Jaguar Spawning II
Jewel Fish
Keo's Flowerhorns
Keo's Flowerhorns II
Kribensis
Odd Couple Spawn
Oscars 1
Oscars 2
Oscars 3
Oscars 4
Oscars 5
More Oscar
More Oscar II
More Oscars III
More Oscars 2007
More Oscars 2007.5
Oscar Spawn
Peacock Bass
Red Devils
More Red Devil
Red Parrots
Red Parrots Spawn
Red Parrot Spawn II
Pikes
Pink Tilapia
Rams
Red Bay Snooks
Red Bay Snook Spawn
Roger Stephen's Cichlids
Severums
More Severums
Severums III
Tanganyikans
Texas Cichlid
Texas Spawning
Texas Spawn II
Uarus
Misc Cichlids I
Misc Cichlids II
Misc Cichlids III
Misc Cichlids IV
Misc Cichlids V
Misc Cichlids VI
Misc Cichlids VII
Misc Cichlids VIII
Misc Cichlids IX

Livebearer  
Guppies
Half-Beak
Mollies
Moons/Platys
Swordtails

Minnows/Tetra 
Barbs
Barbs, Black
Barbs, Gold
Barbs, Rosy
Barbs, Tiger
Barbs, Tinfoil
Danios
Danio Egg Saver
Distochodus
Fathead Minnows
Headstanders
Killies, Econ.
Killies, Golden
Killies, Peat
Killies, Plant
Misc Mini-Fish
Pacús 
Piranha, Black
Piranha, Red
Rainbowfish

Rainbowfish, Dwarf Neon
Rainbowfish, Irian
Silver Dollar
Tetras, Larger
Tetras, Smaller
Tetras, Spawn
Tetra, Vampire
White Clouds

Pond Fish
Carp
Channel Cat
Gold. Comets
Gold. Fantails
More Fantails
Gold. Oriental  
Gold Oriental II 
Gold. Spawn
Kloubec Koi Farm
Koi
Koi II

Koi III
Oranda Spawn
Plecostomus
Shubunkins

Oddballs  
Af. Butterfly
Af. Lungfish
Af. Mudskippr
American Eel
Archer Fish
Arowana
Bichirs
Borneo Suckers
Brackish I
Brackish II
Brackish III
Brackish IV
Brackish V
Michael Troung's Pix
Butterfly/Wasp
Chameleon Fish
Chromides
Chin Alg Eater
Crazy Fish
Crocodile Fish
Datnioides
Dojo
Dwarf Puffers
Electric Cat
Electric Eels
Elephant Nose
Exodon paradoxus
Flounder
Gars  
Glassfish
Goby Bumble
Goby Butterfly
Goby Dragon
Goby Misc.
Half-Beak
Knife African
Knife Clown
Knife Ghost
Loach Botias
Loach Clown
Loach Kuhli
Loach Weather

Longear Sunfish
Moray Eel  
Peacock Gudgeons
Polypterids
Puffers
Ropefish
Scats
Siam Algae Eater 
Spiny Eels 
Snakehead
Stingray
Stonefish
Wasp Fish
Wolffish
Wrest Half-Beak
Misc Mini-Fishes
Misc Odd
Misc Odd II
Misc Odd III
Misc Odd  IV

Misc Odd V
Misc Odd VI

Sharks  
Bala
Black
Bull
Chinese Hi-Fin Banded
Iridescent
Red-Tail
Siam Algae Eater

Pond Info 
Blank Park Zoo
Bob Humphrey's Ponds
Cattails
Maffett Reservoir
DMACC's Pond
D.M. Botanical Center
D.M. Water Works
Dr. Ervanian's Garden
Duckweed
Dwarf Lily
Ewing Park "Pond"
Jan & Chris's Water Garden
John McDonald's Pond
Hall's Four Acres
Klines' Water Garden
Landscaper Effects
Mini-Pond Pics
Pioneer Corn's Pond
Pond Fish Predators
Pond on 38th Street 
Pond Pics
Pond Plants
More Pond Plants
Pond Plants III
Reiman Ponds
River Scenes
Riverview Island
Selin's Water Gardens
Selin's Japanese Garden
Tom's Used Cars Pond
Urbandale Duck Pond
Water Hyacinth
Water Lettuce
Wild Ponds