Honey gourami

Water parameters

Tolerated range for this species. Aim for the middle of each band rather than the extremes.

Tank and habitat

Substrate: any.

Behavior

Plant interaction: plant safe.

Feeding

Takes flake food, micro pellets, frozen daphnia, frozen brine shrimp, and frozen bloodworm without fuss. Small mouth means large flake pieces and whole bloodworms are difficult to eat; crush or chop. Live food (baby brine shrimp, microworms, fruit flies) triggers the strongest feeding response and is useful for conditioning breeding pairs. Honeys are deliberate, slow feeders that get outcompeted at the surface by faster species. If keeping them with active surface feeders like danios, drop food at multiple spots or use a feeding ring to ensure the gouramis get their share. Feed twice daily in small amounts. They'll sometimes spit at the surface to knock small insects or food particles within reach, a hunting behavior shared with other anabantoids.

Compatibility

• Possibly the most community-safe gourami available. Gentle, slow-moving, and non-territorial except when a male is guarding a bubble nest. Even then, the aggression is half-hearted compared to other gourami species.
• Pairs well with small, peaceful fish: neon tetras, ember tetras, rasboras, corydoras, and small loaches. Avoid anything nippy or overly active; tiger barbs and serpae tetras stress honeys to the point of persistent hiding and color loss.
• Males sometimes harass females during breeding attempts. Keep a ratio of one male to two females, or provide dense planting so the female can escape line of sight. A lone pair in a sparsely decorated tank leads to relentless chasing.
• Sunset honey gouramis are a colour-selected form of this species. The honey gourami is also frequently confused in shops with the thick-lipped gourami (Trichogaster labiosa) and the dwarf gourami, which are larger.

Origin and habitat

Trichogaster chuna, the honey gourami, is one of the smallest gouramis, native to the lowlands of northeastern India, Bangladesh, and Nepal. It lives in the Ganges floodplain and delta and the Brahmaputra system, in heavily vegetated, sluggish water such as ponds, ditches, and seasonally flooded fields. Hamilton described it in 1822 and was famously fooled by the sexes: the drab female and the colourful male were named as two different species, chuna and sota, before they were recognised as one. The fish later sat in the genus Colisa and is now placed in Trichogaster. It is a labyrinth fish, able to gulp air at the surface, with thread-like pelvic fins it uses as feelers. Breeding males turn a deep honey-gold to orange with a dark blue-black underside. Reported maximum size runs from about 4 to 7 cm depending on the source. The species is regularly muddled in shops with the thick-lipped gourami and the dwarf gourami, and almost all honey gouramis in the trade are commercially bred rather than wild-caught.

Breeding

A bubble-nest builder. The male whips up a raft of saliva-coated bubbles at the surface, sometimes under a broad leaf or in a tank corner, then displays to the female with heightened colour and flared fins. A receptive pair wraps in the anabantoid embrace beneath the nest, the female releasing eggs in small batches that the male gathers and tucks into the bubbles; repeated embraces over a few hours add up to a sizeable spawn. Afterward the male guards the nest and the female is best removed. The eggs hatch in a day or two, and the fry hang in the nest for a couple of days on their yolk before swimming free, at which point the male should come out too. The fry are tiny and need infusoria-grade food before graduating to baby brine shrimp, and they grow slowly.

Common problems

The honey gourami's reputation rests on being far hardier than the dwarf gourami it is so often confused with. The two are different species, and the iridovirus that runs rampant through farmed dwarf gouramis is widely reported to be much less of a problem for honeys, though it is wise not to house the two together. The more usual issue with a honey gourami is stress: a fish that has gone pale and spends its time hiding is almost always reacting to pushy tankmates or an unsettled tank rather than being ill, and colour returns within days once the cause is removed. Bacterial problems like fin rot turn up when water quality drops. They breathe air and cope with low oxygen, but they are no more tolerant of ammonia or nitrite than anything else, and they dislike strong current, since they come from still water.

Bioload

Further reading

• Biotope aquariums: matching fish to their natural habitat
• Stocking ideas by tank size