Chocolate Gouramis

F

Faramir

The twit from over the pond.
Nov 20, 1998
738
0
0
Chesterfield UK
Had a dream about these last night; why I do not know, but I was in a shop and they had a pair; I woke up working out how to rearrange my tanks to accommodate them.

Enough of this view into Karl's subconscious.

Question - has anyone ever kept these? Are they as difficult as it's made out to be? If I got a pair (which I've always wanted to do) how best are they to be kept, and bred?
 
I tried a trio, had the first batch die overnight (so did the LFS) so got another trio--they lasted exactly 2 weeks. So, here is what I did wrong:

Too fast of acclimation. I acclimated for about 1 hour--not long enough, IMO.

Too new a tank-it was cycled, and clean, but I think I should have put them in my well established 40 instead. Not sure how to quarantine them, and I think they need quarantining. Ideas?

Not enough hiding places. Once more--small, raw tank. I think they'd have done better with lots of mature vegetation and the micro-community that comes with dense, healthy vegetation.

Didn't have any problems feeding them--they took to everything I offered.

From observing mine while they were alive, I think these guys are shy. Quick to change color with mood changes, but quite active for a small fish. Really lovely--I might make room for them when I rebuild the 40 from a fish tank w/plants into a planted tank with fish.
 
My parents tank has a couple of small flying foxes (though they love their caves so much you wouldn't know they were there until feeding time) and a school of 4 silver tip tetras and 1 head and tail light. The tank had been running for 1 month (these guys had been moved from a much smaller tank and everything came with them) so we thought it was time to add something different. At first it was going to be a different school of tetras but our pH was kind of high so we went with gouramis instead. We got 1 honey and 1 chocolate which I later found out works best in groups. Our chocolate is doing really well, though he seems mostly intent on munching our plants. He has been around for 2 months now and has had no problems. I acclimated him for 30 minutes. No one in the tank even notices his slow meandering around the tank. The honey has doubled in size and has become the guy everyone gives room to, but Coco just sticks to himself.

From what I read they like lots of plants, more than just 1 one themselves and little current as they don't seem to be super strong swimmers. I think I will have to add at least 1 more.

Oh and they seem to go all white at night after all the lights are turned off.
 
These are very interesting and attractive fish. I hope you can find some, I rarely see them in the stores around nyc.

A few thoughts:

Orion Girl is right, a long acclimation process of slowly introducing the aquarium water into the holding container is required.

Think of them as you might cardinal tetras in terms of water quality and acclimation.

I know that a previous poster wrote they keep one in a high PH but normally that adjustment needs to be made very gradually or the fish will stress and die.

Most chocolates are wild caught fish and keep that in mind when handling them.

They come from soft acid water ph around 6.4 and if you can duplicate that, great. otherwise acclimate very very gradually.

They are very shy fish and they prefer warmer water. They show their best color around 82 to 90 F. At lower temps they tend to "grey down" and you don't get the full benefit of their interesting colours.

They seem to need vegetable matter in their diet.. Water sprite seemed to be fav. of mine and plenty of hiding places they are very shy. Floating plants are great for them providing a veg source and shade....which they love

They can be very aggressive with each other but are very calm and peaceful with other fish...harlequin rasboras and cardinal tetras are good tank mates.

Here is the interesting thing about them..the dont build bubble nests like other anabanatioids..but rather are mouthbrooders.

They lay the eggs on a rock or substrate then follow a mouthbrooder pattern.

Real cool interesting fish.. hard to sex..though.. I think the male has a gold/white border on the anal fin when in breeding condition but not sure.

If you do keep more than one in a tank make sure you have lots of hiding spaces and plants..

low light is best..
 
aquatrippe said it correctly. I have had them on 3 different occasions but never had a problem acclimating them. They do sometimes just exist in hard water but they really should have a ph of around 5.5 and an almost non-existant hardness. I have bred a lot of 'soft water' species but never this one. They are very delicate and should be maintained in a species tank. I suggest you acquire a group of 6 as I did the last time but they still just seemed to die off for no apparent good reason. Best of luck if you do find some.
 
I've never kept them but had a look at some wild gouramis in Malaysia last year from slow moving acidic water. I hear they're no harder than other blackwater fish but prone to bacterial problems in harder water, and you don't get much warning before death
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom