Thick lipped sunset looks gravid..

Will my thick lipped sunset breed with a sunset dwarf?

 

I'm not familiar with a sunset dwarf gourami. Is it a dwarf gourami or a honey gourami?

 

It's a dwarf.. Maybe I'm calling it something it's not?? Its the fish in my profile pic

 

I'm not sure that it's a dwarf. And I can't tell from the pic as I can't get it big enough. But dwarf gourami usually come in either red or blue...not yellowish. The only gourami that come in yellowish (other than some of the larger ones) are honey or sunset thicklip.

 

The Red Dwarf is sometimes called a Sunset, usually if it has a dark blue chin/chest. These fish are all the result of hybridization, so it may be possible for them to interbreed further.

 

Here is a better pic.

 

My "other" 3..lol

 

That is certainly a lalia type fish. Color is interesting. Got a picture of the Sunset Thicklip?

Ooops, you posted those while I was writing the first part of this. Yeah, they all look female.

Crossing is possible, but low probabillity. If anything happens, let us know!

 

I thought that's what the top and bottom ones might be?? I was told that the short distance between the nose top and the eye determine that..

 

Wait..scratch that..the top is supposedly a dwarf sunset honey. The bottom 2 are thicklipped

 

The Red Dwarf is sometimes called a Sunset, usually if it has a dark blue chin/chest. These fish are all the result of hybridization, so it may be possible for them to interbreed further.

Are you sure? Hybridization with what gourami ? To my knowledge these two fishspecies won't breed

 

I was under the impression the only two gourami that could hybridize were thicklip and banded. But I could be completely wrong on that.

 

I was under the impression the only two gourami that could hybridize were thicklip and banded. But I could be completely wrong on that.

Someone told me there was a suspecion those were in fact the same species, with some local "changes"

 

Someone told me there was a suspecion those were in fact the same species, with some local "changes"

That makes sense if that is true

 

That makes sense if that is true

Yeah but never got scientific proof

 

Yeah but never got scientific proof

We rarely do

 

A friend in Cleveland hybridized standard lalius with chuna way back in the 70s, shortly after the Flame Dwarf first appeared. He was trying to see if this cross had produced the Flame Gouramis. had no trouble whatsoever, but found that the hybrids needed to be line bred for many generations. Also, that's how the sunset color got from one species to another. T. lalius has proven to be very prone to color variants, but three of the four species of the genus are quite willing to interbreed. They all reproduce in the same way, and have relatively little difference in behavior.

We knew all this back in the 70s, certainly by the mid 80s. It was published in magazines such as TFH and The Aquarium. There were a lot of things that happened in the aquarium hobby before the internet, you know.

 

Just out of curiosity, which is the species that doesn't interbreed easily?

 

T. fasciata. It will interbreed with labiosa, but not the other two. Also, it is very rare to see them any more, same with wild type labiosa. In fact, I haven't even seen any good wild type chuna in a very long time.

 

A friend in Cleveland hybridized standard lalius with chuna way back in the 70s, shortly after the Flame Dwarf first appeared. He was trying to see if this cross had produced the Flame Gouramis. had no trouble whatsoever, but found that the hybrids needed to be line bred for many generations. Also, that's how the sunset color got from one species to another. T. lalius has proven to be very prone to color variants, but three of the four species of the genus are quite willing to interbreed. They all reproduce in the same way, and have relatively little difference in behavior.

We knew all this back in the 70s, certainly by the mid 80s. It was published in magazines such as TFH and The Aquarium. There were a lot of things that happened in the aquarium hobby before the internet, you know.

I am a pre-internet individual as well hahaha. But did the flame get out of this crossbreeding? I have the impression it is a selective / linebred variaty like black Corys.

 

The true origin of the Flame was never revealed, but my friend did get differently colored fish from the cross. He was able to clean up some of these with line breeding, but didn't take it all the way. The thing is, it wasn't as simple as lalia plus chuna equals Flame. People tend to think hybridization is simple, when it is far from it.

One farm originally developed the Flame, whether by line breeding or hybridization or a combination of the two, and was only selling males (that was where that started). However, some competitors broke in and stole a pond full of females to cross with the males, and broke the monopoly. Sadly, "Flame" females never really were released to the hobby in any numbers, I suspect due to bad sex ratios; yet another hint of hybrid nature.

I don't know where the Sunset came from exactly, but the fact that some specimens show characteristics of both chuna and labiosa is a pretty good indication that the two were crossed. Whether the cross produced the color variation, or it was simply passed by hybridization, I have no idea. But the wild type chuna males have a fairly dark red color when in breeding dress, far more attractive IMO than any of the variants. One of the old common names for the species was Sunset Dwarf Gourami because of the orange above the dark blue chest.

To the OP's three Sunsets: 1 and 3 have more chuna characteristics, and 2 is closer to labiosa, as you suspected. However, I would tend to go more by size of the fish as to how I would call it.

 

Here is a better pic.

That is a stunning fish. I love the colors and have never seen one that looked like that. Alison

 

Tha ks for the info CD. I'd suspect the flame to be smaller than as well, but probably those gens only came from the DG !
Personally I hate colormorphs and hybrids cause Mother Nature did a great job on het own. But have to admit some colors are amazing.

 

Ok so I finally caught up on this thread. Lol. The 2 fish that I thought were getting prepared to breed were the ones shown in this pic. I took this pic a month or so ago..nothing further ever happened beyond the bubble nest..but also I had to reclean the filter and the whole tank.,as they were overfed by an overzealous staff member in the assisted living. Lol. Ugggh. Now after this thread I'm under the impression that the blue and orange is a flame DG. And the other is a sunset honey. I'm understanding the probability of these two breeding is slim?

 

Trichogaster lalius (male), Trichogaster labiosa (female) I'd say. As I understand correctly from m @chromedome it is possible, but doubting if anyone is waiting for these hybrids.