# Gourami, egg laden or sick?



## Linilou (Oct 15, 2009)

*Gourami, egg laden or sick? acting very weird and changing color?*

Hello, first post here, 

Ok, i have 3 gouramis- 2 are females, one blue and one snakeskin(tho i think shes a blue too) and one male, which is gold, (who Ive just got today- so i doubt he has any role in this, ive had him for less than 2hr)

my question is, Both my female gouramis are bit bloated (nothing drastic) and a bit dark in the stomach (tho it might just be a shadow cast by the bloat) and one seems to float on her side every time the other comes near

Other than this there eating very healthy, attacking the blood worms and flakes i put in there, and are swimming about normally, allthough the 'snakeskin' does chase the other one around a bit,

are they sick, or are they filled with eggs? Could they be egg filled with the absence of a male?

i cant upload any pictures just yet, since i have no camera, but i should be getting one tommrow,

thanks for any help!!

[edit]

Now ive noticed something *very* strange,
the 'snakeskin', who usially has VERY light strips, allmost so you cant see them, now has VERY dark stripes, allmost black. I didnt know they could change color?
Does this mean shes stressed?and shes started nipping heavily on the other two and even the danios which ive *never* seen her do.


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

usually when one fish lays on it's side in front of another it is showing submission.
I had 2 female gouramis once. One killed the other. The one left got really big and became extremely aggressive with the other inhabitants. I took her back to the store when she was about 3 years old. 
You say that the gold gourami is a male so the females do have a male presumably in with them. Yes they do fill up with eggs but I would think the male will squeeze them out.Bettas are in the same family and I know the female "bar" up when they are ready to lay eggs so probably the gouramis might do the same.


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## Linilou (Oct 15, 2009)

Thanks, 

Now that the male is in there ive seen allmost no aggression and both their bellies have unswelled, which is weird because neither have mated with him and there was never a bubble nest,


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## mousey (Jan 18, 2005)

lack of the nest proves nothing.


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## Guest (Oct 17, 2009)

i know for a fact that gouramis can and will destroy the nest if the eggs were a bad batch.


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## Linilou (Oct 15, 2009)

ok, that must have been what happened then, thanks so much


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