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Eight months ago I bought what I thought was one male and two female pearl gouramis -- but one of the "females" turned out to be a male when s/he grew up.

The poor thing lives in the back corner of my 30-gallon tank, spending most of the day hiding in the plants because the other male has claimed the entire rest of the tank as his territory.

Would moving them to a 55-gallon tank -- which would give them an extra foot of swimming space, length wise, would help? Plus, it would shake up the territories -- and I could get a couple more females (which would hopefully "stay" female!)

What size tank are they in now? I'd say move them to the 55 gallon anyway, they can get up to 6" long AND get some more females. And lotsa plants. Pearls generally are aggressive..but you may have a really shy male there. They are pretty easy to sex when you look at the top fin-it's longer and pointed in males, rounded in females. What size are yours now by the way?

They're in a 30 now, with a handful of platies for company. I'm pretty sure they're full grown now -- they're not quite 5 inches, but haven't grown in quite awhile.

They were about 3.5 inches when I got them almost a year ago. When I bought them, one was obviously a male, and I was pretty sure the other two were females, as was the clerk in my aquarium store (which hires ony the most competent people.)

But in the past four months or so, the dorsal fin on one of the "females" has really grown out -- it's now long and pointy and his breast has taken on a slight pinkish cast (more than the female's, but not as much as the other male's, which I'm assuming is because he's not the dominant male).

I've been wanting to move them anyway -- I have an empty 55 that I can squeeze into my home office, although I'm also considering taking out the file cabinets and going reallylarge -- like a 180 or 220. (I just have to figure out if the floor can hold the weight.)

That would certainly make them happy!