Agressive pearl gourami

[Wrench]

I picked up a pearl gourami for my 55 yesterday and he's extremely agressive too all fish in my community tank. I've had a few of these before and never had any problems. Tankmates include angels, rummy nose tetras, bleeding heart tetras, penguin tetras, golden rams, dwarf gouramis, glass catfish, rhino pleco, and a pair of tri color sharks. My other two gouamis show a little aggression, but only towards each other on an infrequent basis. Any ideas on why this particular fish is being so openly agressive? I'd hate to have to take it back to the LFS since he's such a beautiful fish. Thx.

 

[Wrench]

right now I have him isolated in my spare 10g that I use for quarantine and such, but I'm afraid I'll have to take him back unless you guys have some suggestions.

 

[TKOS]

Unfortunatley some fish are just jerks and don't seem to want to play by the rules. It is like when 90% of the people claim to keep a betta with community fish and then someone else comes in and says their's wrecked their tank. It sounds like you may just have to take him back if he might damage your other fish.

Do you have lots of hiding spots and plants in then 55?

 

[cloud]

You do get the odd rogue fish and he could be one. I once had a psycho guppy of all things.
But it sounds like your dwarf gourami is a pain because it needs the right company.
You need to pair them off where Dwarf gouramis are concerned. One mail and one femail. Maybe your other gouramis are aggressive towards each other because they are of the same sex also.
As a guide, males fade into red at the back, and females are blue all the way along.

 

[MJMiller]

I hate those fish... I had the same problem, except that it didn't get along with the female either. I got another male, but then the female died. I replaced it with a pretty small "female" which grew up to be a male and that really got bad. They are beautiful fish, but I'll never own another.

Good Luck.

 

[TKOS]

Most members of the anabantid family do best as solitary fish. They can get along with other types of fish but generally like their own kind only at certain poitns in their life and not as life long buddies. This includes bettas, gouramis and of course paradise fish.