Female Dwarf Gourami

[walker001]

Hi, this is a bit of an odd question, but where can Female Dwarf Gouramis be purchased?
I have stopped at 2 chain stores and a mom and pop, and all I can find are males. Are they normally hard to find, or because of their lesser coloration, they just don't stock them?
Thanks

 

[sylvia]

You are exactly right - they are more difficult to find precisely because their duller colors make them less popular and, therefore, LFSs find it more profitable to stock males exclusively. It's a great shame realy...

Anyway, finding them is tricky and may mean you have to order online. Another option would be to ask an LFS to order some in for you or to ask around and see if anyone in your vicinity has bred some you can take off their hands. With a little luck, you could also possibly stumble across a bunch of females in one of your smaller LFSs. Chain pet shops don't tend to stock females, but small, specialised fish shops may do.

Good luck with your search but make sure you have the right tank set-up for them before you actualy purchase any.

 

[severina]

I've been looking *forever* and I still haven't found any. and I can't buy online since I have no credit card. But good luck to you on your search.

 

[Mariposa]

I also had the same problem finding female dwarf gouramis and the ones I did find were so diseased I was amazed the LFS had them on display. What kind of condition are fish in when bought online, anyone know?

 

[Iann]

I have a female blue dwarf, she is a real nice fish. i live in the uk, so it won't be of much use me linking the shop, as most of you guys live in the US.
I have a thread in the tropical chit chat section, i'll try and link it below, maybe someone with experience with blue dwarfs could have a look, as i had a few problems with the two males that i first bought before tacking one back and swaping him for a female blue.
I'll try to borrow a camera from a friend and post a pic of her later, if i can?

www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=128459

 

[Inchworm]

You are exactly right - they are more difficult to find precisely because their duller colors make them less popular and, therefore, LFSs find it more profitable to stock males exclusively. It's a great shame realy...

This is the excuse they give us anyway. I don't believe it at all. Since when do people buy fish only for color? It's more natural to buy pairs and most people do just that when they are available. Females aren't dull either. They are a beautiful silvery color.

The lfs don't carry them because the distributors they get them from don't have them. The distributors don't have them because they can't get them from the breeders. Why can't they get them from the breeders, you might ask? I think it's because they have line bred these unnaturally colored fish and don't want them to be bred by hobbyists. The only way to control that is to keep all the females.

I've looked and looked and only once found female dwarf gouramis of this type. The sad part is that the males still sell, and the lfs now stock them almost exclusively. It's almost impossible to find natural colored dwarf gouramis anymore, and they were every bit as lovely as the ones available today.

If I can't get females, I won't get the males either. If more people did the same, perhaps we would find them more readily available.

 

[Iann]

Here is a quick pic of the pair, not a very good pic though.

 

[Iann]

One more

 

[severina]

Thanks, Cambee. Now I'm just jealous.

 

[lljdma06]

You are exactly right - they are more difficult to find precisely because their duller colors make them less popular and, therefore, LFSs find it more profitable to stock males exclusively. It's a great shame realy...

This is the excuse they give us anyway. I don't believe it at all. Since when do people buy fish only for color? It's more natural to buy pairs and most people do just that when they are available. Females aren't dull either. They are a beautiful silvery color.

The lfs don't carry them because the distributors they get them from don't have them. The distributors don't have them because they can't get them from the breeders. Why can't they get them from the breeders, you might ask? I think it's because they have line bred these unnaturally colored fish and don't want them to be bred by hobbyists. The only way to control that is to keep all the females.

I've looked and looked and only once found female dwarf gouramis of this type. The sad part is that the males still sell, and the lfs now stock them almost exclusively. It's almost impossible to find natural colored dwarf gouramis anymore, and they were every bit as lovely as the ones available today.

If I can't get females, I won't get the males either. If more people did the same, perhaps we would find them more readily available.

X-files theme coming on... Governement conspiracies and female gouramis suppression. Actually, I totally agree with your Inchworm, especially on one point. I also really miss natural dwarf gouramis. I also remember that females used to be a lot more common when only the natural form was sold. That was part of the reason why I did not get dwarf gouramis and opted instead for honey gouramis, which were still hard to find. For a while, my LFS only had the red and golden varieties of honey gouramis, and I really wanted the natural honey gouramis. It's a much prettier fish in it's natural coloration, as is the Dwarf.

 

[sylvia]

To be honest, while it's feasable that this is what the breeders were aiming for Inchworm, it's not very likely. It's not impossible to get females and breeding the colorful varieties isn't difficult even if you only have a bright male and a 'natural' female. If these breeders were serious about preventing people from breeding the same, they'd have to stop all female dwarf imports. Besides, even if some people did breed the colorful dwarfs, it would always be in the LFSs' (and therefore customer's) best interest to buy from the large-scale producers abroad who are responsible for creating these fish simply because it's far mroe economical to do so (the large-scale breeders can afford to sell the fish for less). It can't be denyed that more people buy male dwarfs than females anyway. Most fish of this type are not bought by people like us who know what their requirements are or who are after a mix of males and females, they're bought by 'newbies' after something colorful and attractive. It's generaly people who haven't done any research and buy on impulse who get them. If this were not the case, dwarf gouramies would be far less popular as people would avoid buying the weaker, mass-bred fish and wouldn't be willing to buy fish from places that only stock males. For LFSs to be stocking only males, it must mean they have a vested interest in doing so. That signifies that males are more in demand than females. If LFSs could gain a higher profit from also stocking females, they'd get local breeders to supply them and it simply doesn't make sense for large-scale breeders to not supply female dwarfs simply to prevent bright colors from being bred on a smaller scale when this wouldn't realy be competition for them anyway and when they'd be missing out from selling such high-in-demand (according to you) females. I live in the UK and, actualy, most LFSs around here do stock females. They are always the last to go while the males dissapear almost instantly. You can see a similar situation occuring with honeys (where both juveniles and females are last to go). In the case of honeys, controlling whether they stock males or females is far more difficult for LFSs because of the difficulty involved with sexing young ones. You can see the same thing as you do with dwarfs, however, with bettas. Most LFSs around here don't EVER stock female bettas - people simply preffer the males. It has nothing to do with a lack of supply of females to the shops - it's just that it's not in the LFS's interest to stock them so they don't order them. I may well be wrong about this but I don't want to jump to a conclusion concerning foreign suppliers where there isn't actualy any evidence in support of the idea. It could well be that they are simply trying to prevent people from breeding brightly colored dwarfs on a small scale - but they aren't actualy getting anywhere with their attempt if that's what their aiming to do and they're not gaining from it if the females would have otherwise been in demand and brought them in a greater revenue. What I do wonder is what happens to all those females they don't supply - do they get culled?