Dwarf Gourami behavior?

Waverider

I want my own ocean
I just got a Powder Blue Dwarf Gourami and love it!! I am curious to some of the behavior I have seen.

All he does all day is swim up and down the glass side of the tank with his tail cocked to the side starring at himself I believe in the glass. I saw that they are related to bettas and figured that this was just normal for the species......But it is all he does!!

I figured he would get sick of it after a week, but now I am getting concerned that he is mentally off. Is this normal?
 
My dwarf gourami's do that also once and awhile... one does it all the time.... hehe... he just likes to start fights.. :Angel: .... gourami's can be aggressive fish, he's probably just checking out his reflection on the glass!
 
Does yours like to eat the bottom wafers that are meant for the catfish? Mine seems to ignore the "normal" floating food and concentrates on the sinking wafers and shrimp pellets.

He the top dog in the tank now.....and you can tell he knows it. :laugh:
 
I have a Pearl that likes to eat the sinking wafers after the loaches have finished. She also hoovers the Hikari micro-pellets off the top.

You might try a few different food sources to see if you can find something it likes.
 
Waverider said:
I just got a Powder Blue Dwarf Gourami and love it!! I am curious to some of the behavior I have seen.

All he does all day is swim up and down the glass side of the tank with his tail cocked to the side starring at himself I believe in the glass. I saw that they are related to bettas and figured that this was just normal for the species......But it is all he does!!

I figured he would get sick of it after a week, but now I am getting concerned that he is mentally off. Is this normal?
My old DG did the same thing, up and down back and forth on the side of the tank, all day long. I thought that he was chasing his reflection too!
 
I have three male Dwarf Gors and they do eat just about anything I feed them, including shrimp pellets meant for my corys.
I have found them to be somewhat territorial and they do have minor scrapes with each other. One of them will also give a short chase to my Golden Ram. No harm, no foul.
The cocking of the tail is common from what I've seen. It's done when they flair their fins antagonizing the others. The scrapes never last long, so I think it's one of things that they do, kinda like the dominant one being tested by the others. Mostly theatrical and fun to watch them show off their beautiful coloration.
I don't think your DG is ready for the fish shrink yet.
 
Yup, my gourami's go after my sinking pellets that are ment for my cories... and they leave the flakes alone, which get eaten up pretty quickly by the neons, and honey gouramis... lol...

but, I've stopped feeding the sinking pellets because my gouramis will eat it all up on my poor cories.... so what I do is just before turning out the tank lights I throw in the pellets, so the gouramis and other fish leave them alone and the cories get to eat!
 
That is great advice!! I think I will start doing the night thing as well. DG don't do to much at night correct? They seem to be a more visual fish than cories.....I have been feeling sorry for them. Thanks for the tip!
 
Gourami Food

I have powder blue dwarf gourami and a fire tail gourami. I've noticed my that my fire tail gourami, especially, won't eat flake food, but he dives for frozen blood worms. I used to put in blood worms periodically as a treat, but now I feel like I need to do it more often so I'm sure my fire tail is eating. I lost a fire tail a few months ago and now I fear he may have starved...he kind of wasted away :-( I'm careful to to put spirulina in the tank in the hope that everyone gets roughage as well as protein. Are there any downsides to feeding blood worms?
 
AquariaCentral.com