Gourami help! They don't get along

I would keep the cherry barbs in the 20, they will be fine with the DG and need more space than a 10.

:iagree: keep the barbs in the 20
 
I keep 2 Dwarf Gouramis in a 55 gallon heavily planted tank with my Rainbows; they don't "get along", but because there is alot of hiding room (i.e. - areas to create "territories"), they coexist OK. I would suggest you move up to a larger tank when you can. A 30-gallon high has the same base as some 20-gallon tanks, and you can find them cheap on Craigslist pretty often, if you live in a decent size city. Room for the fish to have their own space really helps with the Dwarfs. For best results, go even bigger.
 
Male DG's are quite territorial and there lies your problem. I have 2 dgs in my tank without any issuse. Although i have not got round to sexing them. If im lucky i have a male and a female... im sure ill get round to doing it eventually lol.
 
Its pretty easy to sex DG. Males are colorful while female are grey. They are hard to find because the young fish a pumped with hormones to get them to show colors early on.

here is a picture of a female I had a couple years back (I miss her :( ):
FemaleGourami.jpg
 
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. This leaves me with yet another question though. If I put a female in either tank, he and she should be ok together right? Isn't it just male on male that is a no go?
 
They would be better then 2 males although when I had a male and a female the female would still get picked on quite a bit. I even looked for another female to spread the aggression.

edit: This was in a regular 20gallon tank
 
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Sorry - I guess I assumed you had some sort of Tiger barbs - Cherries are fine, keep 'em if you like 'em (as mentioned above).

Safest play is keeping just one DG per tank. Even paired DGs seldom act "paired" for more than a few days at a time, then they fight if not given adequate space to establish their own territories.
 
DGs are kind of like bettas, add a female when the time is right and they will breed. Keep them there for too long and the male will beat up the female. So no long-term female in the male tank.
 
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