Not a normal color?

I returned a dwarf gourami today because he was being very aggressive towards my tetras and exchanged him for another one. The new guy is wonderful and working out great, but there's just something weird about his color. Normal dwarfs are blue with red stripes, but this guy is a brownish-bronze with red stripes. If I take a pic with the flash then he come's out blueish but just normally he's dull looking. I've read that they turn this color when they're wanting to breed...and I have observed him trying to make a bubble nest already and pulling some of the moss off to make it. Is this normal, and will he go back to being a bright blue and red? Thanks!

Sorry the pics aren't the best. He isn't a flame dwarf,...they are actually stripes, not just solid red.

Here he is with flash
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Here he is without flash
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
He could possibly be a female too, but he's so aggressive! My powder blue dwarf (for sure male) used to be the aggressive one but now he's being pushed around like a sissy girl.

Here is the guy I returned. See how much bluer he is?
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

he is a sunset gourami, not a dwarf.

exactly ^

They can still be just as aggressie as the other darfs though. ):

He's not a sunset. He has stripes, not a solid color all over. He still has some blue on him, it's just that his face is brownish-bronze

Its a normal color, I had one that as more orange then blue. Probably a cross of the 2 if anything

WHOA!!! So he is actually a SHE...and apparently all that chasing was her wanting to mate...sure enough my powder blue made a nest under my filter and they got at it...removing the nest and exchanging them both for a male dwarf...hopefully this time I get it right >.< I guess that explains the dull color lol

get yo money back.... petco is gonna give ya bad fish, or hybrids, I just get a bad feeling when gettin fish from there..... and go with some rams.... bridges isnt too far, they have a few really nice ones!

aww you could have little morph babies!

return them and get some Africans! You will love them!

He's definitely a dwarf gourami, not a honey sunset. Honey sunsets are ALL orange. He could possibly be female though, so I guess "she", you can tell by the fins. Google so you can see pics and compare.

Gourami are pretty easy to sex, the male have pointed dorsal fin and the female have rounded. for next time... lol Currently I have 1 male with 3 females and they don't argue to much. I tried bringing more males in but they just stop eating and die. : (

Yup, had to do the same thing: return him.
You did the proper approach; no fish tank should accept extreme aggression.

In my opinion, research should be done before buying the fish. Returning the fish isn't very responsible. On the same note, you should've been advised at the time of purchase of this fish.

There are blue and red dwarf gouramis. At my store, when we're asked to bring them in for a customer, we advise one per tank maximum. And avoid con specifics. Aka, don't have it with other fish that look like itself. Don't keep it with a betta, or paradise fish.

The problem is, people see a tank full of the dwarf gouramis, and they generally look peaceful. It's like an overstocked tank of cichlids, you need the numbers to keep aggression down. Once you are low on numbers, they're ruthless. Most people don't entertain the idea, of 40 dwarf gouramis in their 55 gallon either. I'm sure it'd be an amazing tank though!

These are one of the few fish that we don't normally carry in stock, due to customer issues.

The stock list to avoid in general:
Dwarf Gouramis - These don't do very well in small tanks, or in a community.
Pink Kisser fish(when full grown 8+ inches, majority of them become killers)
Oscars(this is a perfectly fine fish, however, some people won't listen and it's easier to not stock them, then argue with customers)
Bumblebee Cichlids - Everyone loves them, till they mature.
Pacu - I don't want to contribute to the LFS spam. Every day someone calls tryign to donate one.