Hi
These fish seemed to come onto the scene around 2022 from what I can see (there are a couple of old threads) and have recently become available again.
I have a group of 5x that I have had for 3 months. They have grown from 2" to 6" in this time. I put the group straight into a 300 gallon and now reside in a 12' (700gal). There is minimal aggression between the group, with the odd bit of chasing here and there. But nothing severe, I put this down to the large tank and still being immature. It will be interesting to see if the harmony continues amongst the group as they mature. Which I feel will be largely dependant on the sex ratio, based on the minor size differences between my group and behaviour it would seem I'm looking at 2m 3f, but that's just an educated guess at this stage.
Their diet primarily consists of a commercial aquaculture pellets and chopped seafood intended for the stingrays. So far they have turned their noses up at any fruits or vegetables, I suspect this will change as they grow.
Their colours are hard to capture at the moment, but they have gone from a fairly drab grey, to grey with purple hues and a good amount of copper in their fins. Regarding appearance, they have obvious vertical bars that widen or split as they join the dorsal. The body/head shape is also notably different to O. goramy. O. septemfasciatus appears more solidly built, with a pointer face that extends into a taller back.
There is very limited care in formation online on the species, however I suspect it is largely identical to O. goramy. Please share your experience with this species and pics. Please don't post pics of standard Giant Gourami's there are enough threads on them.
The things I am most interested in;
- do they eventually look like the fishing pictures you see of the spectacular males; that being vibrant reds and oranges with overly exaggerated heads and deep horizontal lines in the face extending into the shoulder? Particularly the colour, I wonder if this is a spawning colouration or depedant on a specific wild diet.
- Size. Said to be the largest Giant Gourami species. Is this species on average larger than O. goramy, is it is just that an individual speciment set the angling record and on average they are of comparable size?
Thanks,
AK
These fish seemed to come onto the scene around 2022 from what I can see (there are a couple of old threads) and have recently become available again.
I have a group of 5x that I have had for 3 months. They have grown from 2" to 6" in this time. I put the group straight into a 300 gallon and now reside in a 12' (700gal). There is minimal aggression between the group, with the odd bit of chasing here and there. But nothing severe, I put this down to the large tank and still being immature. It will be interesting to see if the harmony continues amongst the group as they mature. Which I feel will be largely dependant on the sex ratio, based on the minor size differences between my group and behaviour it would seem I'm looking at 2m 3f, but that's just an educated guess at this stage.
Their diet primarily consists of a commercial aquaculture pellets and chopped seafood intended for the stingrays. So far they have turned their noses up at any fruits or vegetables, I suspect this will change as they grow.
Their colours are hard to capture at the moment, but they have gone from a fairly drab grey, to grey with purple hues and a good amount of copper in their fins. Regarding appearance, they have obvious vertical bars that widen or split as they join the dorsal. The body/head shape is also notably different to O. goramy. O. septemfasciatus appears more solidly built, with a pointer face that extends into a taller back.
There is very limited care in formation online on the species, however I suspect it is largely identical to O. goramy. Please share your experience with this species and pics. Please don't post pics of standard Giant Gourami's there are enough threads on them.
The things I am most interested in;
- do they eventually look like the fishing pictures you see of the spectacular males; that being vibrant reds and oranges with overly exaggerated heads and deep horizontal lines in the face extending into the shoulder? Particularly the colour, I wonder if this is a spawning colouration or depedant on a specific wild diet.
- Size. Said to be the largest Giant Gourami species. Is this species on average larger than O. goramy, is it is just that an individual speciment set the angling record and on average they are of comparable size?
Thanks,
AK
