Aggressive Dwarf Gourami?
- Thread starter TJT
- Start date
After reading that article, would it be wise for me to put some peat moss instead of carbon in my filter? Would that really help at this point or should I keep trying to cycle down the well water with r/o water treated with electro-right, and at some point start using a 50/50 mix of well water to ro?
also, dwarf gouramis are way more aggressive than other gouramis. so even though yours was more aggressive than most, he was still a more aggressive type of fish to begin with. my gold gourami will pick on smaller gouramis of different types. my 2 pearls live with a rainbowfish, 5 molly fry (which they never even chase), 6 oto cats, and frogs, etc...
everyone is happy and colors are amazing.
everyone is happy and colors are amazing.
i'm not experienced with actually treating hard water, so i can't give advice...i just know that certain levels are toxic to certain fish, and regular neons are very sensitive to hard water. i would start a new thread regarding hard water. someone far wiser than I will surely help you out! send me a private message with the thread link so i can follow it if you don't mind, i'd love to learn about this some more too.
General Freshwater would be a good forum for it. I'd mention the high fatality rate, that you have well water, give all test results that you have, and see what they say. There's this guy Harlock who pretty much answers everything! lol.
best of luck
General Freshwater would be a good forum for it. I'd mention the high fatality rate, that you have well water, give all test results that you have, and see what they say. There's this guy Harlock who pretty much answers everything! lol.
best of luck
weird. he is usually overly helpful, maybe he is burnt out!
i'd still make a new thread. someone will help. if not, try using the search feature for this site and google. i've had great luck that way too.
i'd still make a new thread. someone will help. if not, try using the search feature for this site and google. i've had great luck that way too.
i think overstocking is very common and i don't know how many fish you have in your 10 Gallon. With all the fish that died and all it was hard to keep track. i'm sure you've heard the 'rules of thumb' for stocking...and yes, too many fish in a small space can cause stress, disease, etc...
i think the bigger issue here is that some of the fish you've mentioned will grow FAR too big for a 10 gallon tank, but they will be ok for the time being. For example, many barbs get huge and you wouldn't want to keep one full grown one in a 10 gallon tank. but i am also overstoked by that logic and i will have to move some fish around as they grow, so i can hardly blame you there! if you have too many fish now, they can create more waste than can be filtered but you levels all seem pretty decent so I don't think that is an issue.
did you start a new thread ??
i think the bigger issue here is that some of the fish you've mentioned will grow FAR too big for a 10 gallon tank, but they will be ok for the time being. For example, many barbs get huge and you wouldn't want to keep one full grown one in a 10 gallon tank. but i am also overstoked by that logic and i will have to move some fish around as they grow, so i can hardly blame you there! if you have too many fish now, they can create more waste than can be filtered but you levels all seem pretty decent so I don't think that is an issue.
did you start a new thread ??
Interesting thread.
It does sound like the aquarium in question is overstocked, I hate to say. This is extremely easy to do, and I've been guilty of it myself. I used to overstock my tanks to nearly 200%, thinking that live plants added lots of leeway to general stocking guidelines. It turns out that this isn't true, because TDS (total dissolved solids) and DOC (dissolved organic compounds) still remain, even though ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate get absorbed by the plants. In an unplanted tank, nitrate levels are indicators of DOC, but the correlation is thrown off with live plants, making it very hard to measure some of the toxic stuff in the tank.
After learning about this, I reduced the number of fish I keep in my tanks. I have to say, an understocked tank is less stressful to maintain, because I know it's going to be able to hold its own for a long time. The fish all seem happier, too, and are consequently more fun to watch.
I've had terrible luck with Pearl Gouramis. Three died within 48 hours of purchase, one died after about two weeks, and my only one that survived for any length of time was outrageously aggressive. I've heard that gouramis are peaceful and hardy; I hope my experiences were out of the ordinary...
Neon Tetras are apparently finnicky fish not well suited for beginners. I had over twenty of them, and finally returned the last seven or so survivors to the LFS.
With my tetras and gouramis, all my water parameters were well within acceptable ranges. Hopefully you'll manage to figure out the problem in this case.
Good luck.
It does sound like the aquarium in question is overstocked, I hate to say. This is extremely easy to do, and I've been guilty of it myself. I used to overstock my tanks to nearly 200%, thinking that live plants added lots of leeway to general stocking guidelines. It turns out that this isn't true, because TDS (total dissolved solids) and DOC (dissolved organic compounds) still remain, even though ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate get absorbed by the plants. In an unplanted tank, nitrate levels are indicators of DOC, but the correlation is thrown off with live plants, making it very hard to measure some of the toxic stuff in the tank.
After learning about this, I reduced the number of fish I keep in my tanks. I have to say, an understocked tank is less stressful to maintain, because I know it's going to be able to hold its own for a long time. The fish all seem happier, too, and are consequently more fun to watch.
I've had terrible luck with Pearl Gouramis. Three died within 48 hours of purchase, one died after about two weeks, and my only one that survived for any length of time was outrageously aggressive. I've heard that gouramis are peaceful and hardy; I hope my experiences were out of the ordinary...
Neon Tetras are apparently finnicky fish not well suited for beginners. I had over twenty of them, and finally returned the last seven or so survivors to the LFS.
With my tetras and gouramis, all my water parameters were well within acceptable ranges. Hopefully you'll manage to figure out the problem in this case.
Good luck.
