Moonlight Gourami (Trichogaster microlepis) can grow up to 13cm long depending on how well they were fed and the overall tank water condition. Basically the male and the female gourami can be differentiated based on their color appearance whereby the male fish is found to exist in silvery green while the females are usually in pale silver color. Besides the color difference, male moonlight gourami also has ventral fins that extended up to quite long, in total contrast with the female fish which only has short fins.Moonlight gourami is considered unique compared to other gourami species and they can be easily identified just by looking at their thin, streamlined body. As you can see from the attached picture, the front part closer to the head actually slopes downward and then rises like a hump moving towards the dorsal region. Although generally they are not so colorful compared to other breeds such as pearl gourami, overall they are still a worthy pet due to their less demanding requirements.
The Snakeskin Gourami (Trichogaster pectoralis) is special in the sense that their body appearance looks almost similar just like you observe on the skin of a snake, which is how they got their name in the first place. Generally what you can see is that, there are multiple bands of think lateral stripe starting from the head till the tail fin and there are also multiple spots running along the lateral line. Compared to the other breeds in the gourami family, they are one of the larger sized species with a full grown size reaching up to 15 cm in length. When determining whether it is a male or female fish, this should not be a difficult task as the males will have pointed and elongated fins while for the females, all fins appear to be short.Due to their larger size, snakeskin gourami will require bigger fish tank to live in. Generally, I wouldn't recommend getting anything below 50 gallon or else their growth will be badly affected causing the fish to be stunted. In terms of water temperature, their needs closely resemble other breeds and species of gourami with best range spread between 25 to 28 degC. In certain parts of Asia, the fish is actually bred in large tropical farms whereby they are harvested solely as food fish served in restaurants.
Three-Spot gourami (Trichogaster trichopterus), as the name implies has two black spots found on its brown or either light blue colored body of the fish. One should be located on the middle region exactly on the center of the body and another one close to the tail fin while the third one actually refers to the eye. In terms of sexual differences, you can easily spot the difference between a male and a female based on their fins appearance in which this is exactly similar just like how you would spot the different on the previous two species of gouramis.The ideal tank setup to house your pet should have at least three quarters of the area filled with live aquarium plants so that the fish can easily find a place to rest and hide. It is not recommended to continuously lit the tank for more than 12 hours and if you can get your hands on an aquarium lighting system that comes with a configured timer bought from a pet shop, you should set the daylight internals to be about 9 hours.
Other types and different breeds of gourami: Neon Blue Dwarf and the Yellow Honey Sunset
