Opaline Gourami??? Single, pair, or trio??? Do they breed easy?

Hi,

So after tons and tons (and tons) of debate, I decided for my tank, I want to get Opaline Gouramis!! I've never had gouramis before, but I have always been in love with them. But I've always had bettas, and bettas and gouramis sadly, don't mix.

Anyways, this is the set up they'll be going in
55 gallon
~moderately planted (swords, cambomba, java, anubias, more coming in the mail) w/ driftwood and a couple slanted rocks
~6 syno petricola, 3 kuhli loaches, MTS, female BN longfin pleco, female blue eye longfin pleco

I have 2 Aqua Tech powerheads, and an Emperor Penguin Biowheel 400

So my questions are
1) Do you think they will do okay in my set up?
2) Should I get a single male or female, a pair, or 1 male and 2 females?
3) Are they easy to breed? I DON'T want them to breed in the tank. I just figured with both a male and female, they display their colors better

Thanks guys!

OrionGirl said:

I'd go with a trio (1m/2f) or a single fish. They should do fine. Add some floating plants and they'll be happy to play in them.

They're nest builders, so if there's lots of surface agitation they won't breed.

And...get more kuhli loaches. With 3, they will spend all their time hiding. 6 would be the minimum, IMO.

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So a pair is out? I was thinking that because then I could get a school of tetras or something with them, but I guess then there is a chance of the male harassing the female constantly.

As for the kuhlis, I actually only had 1 for a couple months, when I bought him I wanted to get 6, but they only had 1. And then for the next months following, no where carried them, so he was by himself. And he NEVER hid. He was always zipping around in the tank. But I felt bad, so after he was moved to the 55 gallon, the store finally got more, but by the time I got there, they only had 2 more left. They all are out all the time though, zipping into the powerheads and playing with each other in the sand.

I know 6 is best, but I just didn't want to be so overstocked when they seem okay in their trio right now. But if the store gets more in, I'll prob get a 2 or 3 more since their bio load is low

How are serpae tetras with gouramis? I know serpaes can be nippy, but I figure if I got a large enough school, then they would keep to themselves?

Thanks