GIANT gouramis

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}}}LATEST BREAKING NEWS{{{

Last night sitting at my desk watching the 11 O'clock news and sipping
some cognac. When all of a sudden BLAME, CRASH, SPLASH, SPLASH, BANG, CRACK, SPLASH, WACK, CRACK, and more SPLASHING, water everywhere. What the @~$#*@%, is going on. I whip around in the swivel chair to see the dominate RTGG just going totally BIZERK..... Crashing into everything in the tank, jumping and hitting the plexiglass protective panels between the water and the VHO 72 inch bulbs. Actually cracking one of the panels, dropping it into the tank.

All the other RTGG's are huddled in a corner trying to stay clear. It's
as if he's was on Crack! All of this lasted roughly 5 minutes. It was
so violent I was afraid to open the top of the tank and try to
retrieve the broken panel, so the fish didn't split itself on them. But I was afraid that he may freak out more and either leap out of the tank or worse smash the VHO bulbs. So I waited, then it happend the dominate male smashed so hard into the side of the tank, that the tank actually started to rock, knocking himself totally senseless.

There he lay upsidedown on the bottom of the tank twitching occasionally
and hardly breathing. After trying a few times to right him using a
piece of clear plastic tubing so not to spook the other RTGGs. I
reached in with a net - that is far too small now a days - lifted him to
the surface and unthinkingly place my thumb into his mouth, only to
discover that Yanbbrox is totally wrong - EEGG are not the only GG with
TEETH.

While I have look to see if I could see signs of any teeth in the past,
unlike EEGG, RTGG's TEETH are far more transparent and hidden by the lip
line, but RTGG's have TEETH. The TEETH on the beast are not like those
on Yanbbrox EEGG, upon closer examination of the RTGG the TEETH resemple those of iamkar avatar, in shape and varying sizes and they are very SHARP!

My beast laid there in a 24 inch cooler, barely alive life slipping away
with each passing minute. I started a siphon on the tank, picked up the
gourami placed him in the sink an ran the siphon through his mouth. But
it didn't seem to do much at all, and his stopped moving and breathing
after a few minutes. As he lay there motionless for a few minutes, I
started pumping water back into tank. A friend dropped by an noted that
I wouldn't have to feel so bad now about cooking the fish as it was
laying dead in the kitchen sink. I guess I said though this one was my
favorite of the group, oh well life goes on.

While we were in the livingroom BS ing about stuff I heard a Splat noise
from the kitchen, when I went to check out the sound. The RTGG was
slapping it's tail against the sink. I pick him up placed him back into
the cooler with about 5gal of tank water, but he had no strangth to gulp
air from the surface. So I drained off most of the water, leaving him
in enough to keep his body wet and his mouth half in and half out of the
water. About an hour later he was still kicking, so I added more
water to the cooler, but he wasn't able to right himself or reach to
gulp air. Around 2:30am I removed the prop holdiing his head close
enough to the surface to for him to glup air, added enough water to
cover his full uprighted body and waited to see if he had enough
strength to go it alone.

Well he never kept himself uprighted in the cooler but he never seemed
to wanna give up. It was late and I needed sleep, I was dozing off as
it was. I was afraid if I placed him back in the tank he would sink to
the bottom and drown or the other male would attack him while he was
weak. But I figured I had about 30 minutes left in me before I waas
outfor the count. So I picked him up and placed him into the tank and
kept a close watch on him. He first took a slow swim around the tank
listing to one side, his eyes seated slanted downward, bumping into
everything. Parking himself in the bottom right corner of the tank,
then the other male charges over and inhales one of this males anal fins
and attempts to rip it off. I jumped to my feet slapped the side of the
tank with my hand, spooking all the fish and sending the co-dominate
male slamming into a large piece of driftwood, and ripping off one of
his scales.

After that the dominate male started to swim more and more upright, so I left him in the tank and went to bed, at 5am while making a bathroom stop I checked in on them. The dominate male was cruising the tank, almost totally upright. Almost as if nothing ever happend, except for several large bruises and a few ripped scales and cuts. When I left for work this morning all seemed well, the dominate male seemed to be swimming upright almost perfectly.

Hopefully all is still well at home.

:popcorn:
 
george the giant gourami;2775646; said:
GG are our friends, not food.

i cant imagine ppl eating them :(

does anyone in the states actually breed them?
Captive breeding is rare but has been done, there a two problems firstly the size is a pain as they need lots of space for a community and the second is they are bubble nesters, they are bred in ponds in the far east and bred for food as apparently they taste nice. Take the salmon lovely looking fish and also taste nice.
 
Tequila;2775852; said:
}}}LATEST BREAKING NEWS{{{

Last night sitting at my desk watching the 11 O'clock news and sipping
some cognac. When all of a sudden BLAME, CRASH, SPLASH, SPLASH, BANG, CRACK, SPLASH, WACK, CRACK, and more SPLASHING, water everywhere. What the @~$#*@%, is going on. I whip around in the swivel chair to see the dominate RTGG just going totally BIZERK..... Crashing into everything in the tank, jumping and hitting the plexiglass protective panels between the water and the VHO 72 inch bulbs. Actually cracking one of the panels, dropping it into the tank.

All the other RTGG's are huddled in a corner trying to stay clear. It's
as if he's was on Crack! All of this lasted roughly 5 minutes. It was
so violent I was afraid to open the top of the tank and try to
retrieve the broken panel, so the fish didn't split itself on them. But I was afraid that he may freak out more and either leap out of the tank or worse smash the VHO bulbs. So I waited, then it happend the dominate male smashed so hard into the side of the tank, that the tank actually started to rock, knocking himself totally senseless.

There he lay upsidedown on the bottom of the tank twitching occasionally
and hardly breathing. After trying a few times to right him using a
piece of clear plastic tubing so not to spook the other RTGGs. I
reached in with a net - that is far too small now a days - lifted him to
the surface and unthinkingly place my thumb into his mouth, only to
discover that Yanbbrox is totally wrong - EEGG are not the only GG with
TEETH.

While I have look to see if I could see signs of any teeth in the past,
unlike EEGG, RTGG's TEETH are far more transparent and hidden by the lip
line, but RTGG's have TEETH. The TEETH on the beast are not like those
on Yanbbrox EEGG, upon closer examination of the RTGG the TEETH resemple those of iamkar avatar, in shape and varying sizes and they are very SHARP!

My beast laid there in a 24 inch cooler, barely alive life slipping away
with each passing minute. I started a siphon on the tank, picked up the
gourami placed him in the sink an ran the siphon through his mouth. But
it didn't seem to do much at all, and his stopped moving and breathing
after a few minutes. As he lay there motionless for a few minutes, I
started pumping water back into tank. A friend dropped by an noted that
I wouldn't have to feel so bad now about cooking the fish as it was
laying dead in the kitchen sink. I guess I said though this one was my
favorite of the group, oh well life goes on.

While we were in the livingroom BS ing about stuff I heard a Splat noise
from the kitchen, when I went to check out the sound. The RTGG was
slapping it's tail against the sink. I pick him up placed him back into
the cooler with about 5gal of tank water, but he had no strangth to gulp
air from the surface. So I drained off most of the water, leaving him
in enough to keep his body wet and his mouth half in and half out of the
water. About an hour later he was still kicking, so I added more
water to the cooler, but he wasn't able to right himself or reach to
gulp air. Around 2:30am I removed the prop holdiing his head close
enough to the surface to for him to glup air, added enough water to
cover his full uprighted body and waited to see if he had enough
strength to go it alone.

Well he never kept himself uprighted in the cooler but he never seemed
to wanna give up. It was late and I needed sleep, I was dozing off as
it was. I was afraid if I placed him back in the tank he would sink to
the bottom and drown or the other male would attack him while he was
weak. But I figured I had about 30 minutes left in me before I waas
outfor the count. So I picked him up and placed him into the tank and
kept a close watch on him. He first took a slow swim around the tank
listing to one side, his eyes seated slanted downward, bumping into
everything. Parking himself in the bottom right corner of the tank,
then the other male charges over and inhales one of this males anal fins
and attempts to rip it off. I jumped to my feet slapped the side of the
tank with my hand, spooking all the fish and sending the co-dominate
male slamming into a large piece of driftwood, and ripping off one of
his scales.

After that the dominate male started to swim more and more upright, so I left him in the tank and went to bed, at 5am while making a bathroom stop I checked in on them. The dominate male was cruising the tank, almost totally upright. Almost as if nothing ever happend, except for several large bruises and a few ripped scales and cuts. When I left for work this morning all seemed well, the dominate male seemed to be swimming upright almost perfectly.

Hopefully all is still well at home.

:popcorn:
Holy intense GG freak out Batman:WHOA:


Wow, that's a truly amazing story. For a guy that hates them and wants to eat them I'm glad your fish keeping gene kicked in and you did all you could to save him. The strength of the fact that they are labyrinth fish probably saved his life due to to your care in the kitchen, letting him sit lifeless but with the ability still to get air is true testament to the fish and the keeper.

I've only ever had one freak out during the start of a waterchange, he went nuts for a bit and banged into the glass and stunned himself a bit, lost a few scales and split a few fins but nothing ever close to that. Since then we have an agreement, he sits on one side of the tank and sulks whilst I clean the other, it works for both of us.

Hope I'm up in the morning to read the update, how it works out for you, thanks for taking the time and posting the story.:)



Oh BTW on the teeth thing, EEGG are the only GG to get proper teeth, OG and RTGG have 2 fine lines of crushing pads just inside the lips, to mince food, these are only detected when the get really big, but get sharp and larger as they grow and are not always visable as they look like lines.

So to sum up they're not teeth but get sharp, sorry I really should have posted that eariler;) Hope he recovers
 
Yanbbrox;2776341; said:
Holy intense GG freak out Batman:WHOA:

Oh BTW on the teeth thing, EEGG are the only GG to get proper teeth, OG and RTGG have 2 fine lines of crushing pads just inside the lips, to mince food, these are only detected when the get really big, but get sharp and larger as they grow and are not always visable as they look like lines.

So to sum up they're not teeth but get sharp, sorry I really should have posted that eariler;) Hope he recovers


Dude trust me on this, I know the difference between TEETH and crushing pads, and these are TEETH. About an eighth of an inch behind the lip line +/-, there in a single row top and bottom of varying size TEETH. Pads would not have ripped up my thumb. Striped Bass have pad like teeth and even a 40+ pounder never ripped up any of my fingers or hand while handling like this fish did.

If all isn't well at home and or shortly after the fish fry I'll go for a closer shot. I'm bring my camera home tonight, just in case.
:popcorn:
 
Tequila;2776409; said:
Dude trust me on this, I know the difference between TEETH and crushing pads, and these are TEETH. About an eighth of an inch behind the lip line +/-, there in a single row top and bottom of varying size TEETH. Pads would not have ripped up my thumb. Striped Bass have pad like teeth and even a 40+ pounder never ripped up any of my fingers or hand while handling like this fish did.

If all isn't well at home and or shortly after the fish fry I'll go for a closer shot. I'm bring my camera home tonight, just in case.
:popcorn:

How's this for the most boring argument we've ever had, your right I'm wrong.... to a point(meaning I'm still right enough;))

EEGG that Wes had, he knows his fish:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1529166&postcount=6

Other GG and teeth:

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1536284&postcount=16

The main point to prove I'm right is in the second link 'some teeth';)

Sorry, I'm tired and history proves we could go on all night/day, hope your beast recovers :)



 
If all goes to plan, I'm winning the lottery this weekend btw, I'll ship myself and George over with a 1000g tank and we'll see how they get along teeth or no teeth:ROFL:

If it doesn't work you can tell me the difference between cognac and XO, I'll provide the drink;)
 
Thought I would add a couple of shots of my RTGG.

A pic from a while ago
post-20-11801367390.jpg


Pic earlier today.
post-20-12345441370.jpg
 
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