gourami aggression curbed, possibly by dr. pinchy the crayfish

[dethjam316]

so about a week ago, i finally reintroduced my big blue gourami to the 55g community tank he started out in over a year ago. for the past year, he'd been exiled to a tank with a crayfish after trying to attack everything in the community tank (he even chased around zebras and corys mercilessly).

what a change.

the demographics of the tank have changed a bit in a year: the primary residents are now 9 other gouramis of various species...ALL FEMALES, which is what i think has been the main contribution to the turn-around in behavior. in fact, this fish has seemingly mellowed out so much that he swims around happily, not bothering anyone, while a female moonlight gourami has claimed the post of most aggressive fish in the tank...and that isn't very aggressive. just thought i'd share an interesting observation...

an alternate theory might be that the crayfish (mister pinchy, gee where'd that name come from...) he lived with was in a fact a licensed psychiatrist, offering extensive anger-management therapy. maybe i should start calling him doctor pinchy.

[ChilDawg]

This works sometimes with exiled anabantoids (and some cichlids) b/c they have no territory, but I'm surprised to hear that there are no real territorial battles after reintroduction!

[dethjam316]

yes, certainly, i think the being isolated for a long time helped the situation, as well being re-introduced to a tank with already established territories. i do think that there are no males of the same or closely related species also contributed.

but i am very surprised overall that the aggression has seemingly disappeared completely. he acts like a completely different fish now, i mostly expected the experiment to not last more than a day or two before exile #2 was forced.

[ChilDawg]

Look out for some breeding behaviour on the horizon, unless the females are all from a different species...

[dethjam316]

there are 2 female gold gouramis in the tank, but they are relatively young...only about 2 inches. it is my understanding that they begin to reach breeding size right about here, is this correct? i suppose i might find out, but so far i haven't seen any such behavior.

[ChilDawg]

Wish I knew for sure...but some other anabantoids begin breeding at as low as half the adult size, so I'd guess that 2" wouldn't be a bad starting spot for the golds.

[valerie]

jsut thoght i would add that i had a crayfish named Dr. Pinchy:D

[dethjam316]

val-- when and where did yours get his/her degree?;)

[valerie]

well we called him doctor because he said he didn't go to 7 years of school to be called mister :p

He got his degree at the CCA(crustacean college of Ablerta)

[mrk442]

I had a dwarf gourami in a comunity tank that decided he was the boss and chased everything in tha tank non stop i added a few dwarf puffers while i was letting there tank cycle he tried to chase them like the others but he learned some manners real quick after being chased all over the tank by a little 1cm fish after that even when i removed them he never was a problem again:)