what kind of fish do I have????

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roxxxy

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Jan 9, 2005
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I have a new 50 gal tank that is Finally ready for fish. My b/f bought some the other day, and I'm not sure what they are, I was hoping someone could help me. ( I tried to post pics but I'm not sure how, it didn't work anyway.)

2 are some kind of gouramis, about 2-3 inches long, silver color with long "tentacles", graceful and beautiful fish.
1 is another kind of gourami, smaller 1-1/2 inches, a light blue color, "tentacles" are not very long (I'm guessing it's just young)
2 are some kind of barb, about 2 inches,orangey color with orange eyes. They are fast swimmers, dart around the tank a lot especially at feeding time.

From what I understand, all of these are schooling fish and I'm going to have to add to their numbers (especially the poor blue gourami, he just sits in the corner all alone, I feel so bad for him). How many should I get? I heard that 5-6 is a decent sized school.

Any help would be appreciated, I haven't had much experience with aquariums since I was a kid and one of my chores was cleaning my mom's danio/tetra/guppy tanks. Thanks
 

OrionGirl

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Aug 14, 2001
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Gouramies are not schooling fish. Blue spot (and the blue spot color morphs, oreange, platinum, and blue) can be very aggressive to each other, especially if you have mixed genders. The dwarf gouramies are also very aggressive to each other as adults.

Barbs do need to be in a group to prevent any one fish from being abused too much, but I wouldn't mix them with calmer fish like gouramies--the gouramies may end up hiding all the time in a tank with hyper fish like barbs and danios.
 

snakeskinner

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Dec 27, 2003
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your best bet is just to do some internet searching if you can't get the pictures posted. they may possibly be dwarf gourami species. search for Colisa and look through the different species and see if any of those look correct. The other possibility is some type of other gourami that is just very young. As Oriongirl said, gourami's are not schooling fish however I have seen "schools" of some species in pictures from the wild so some will but they need to be in large groups. I would keep an eye on what you have and you may possibly need to return some if they become aggressive towards eachother. As for the barbs, I'm not sure you have barbs because I can't think of an orange barb with orange eyes. I have a suspicion that you have serpae tetras. Do a search for serpae tetra and see if that looks right. One barb I can think of that may be a possiblity is the cherry barb. The males are red and the females brown but I don't think either of these fish have orange eyes. Kyle
 

OrionGirl

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Aug 14, 2001
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Albino tiger barbs have orange splotches--can't think of the eye color off the top of my head, though.
 

judgemax

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Feb 18, 2005
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i have 3 albinos they do have orange eyes but if hats what you have would recomend taking them back they are very fiickle and they will take a corner and protect it they dont like to share tanks!the best bet with tiger barbs to keep them occupied with themselves is to have atleast three but recomend 5 or more that way they can chase each other :eek: :huh: :rolleyes:
 
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