Gourami Nightmare

C

CaptnDan

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Oct 21, 2004
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We had two gold gouramis in our 55gal tank. They were never a problem, as far as we know. After having lost a few fish over the past few months, we deicided to replace the dwarf gouramis that had died.

And that's when the trouble began. As soon as the drarves were released into the tank, the golds immediately began a relentless pursuit. Finally, one dwarf tried to get between the filter tube and tha back wall. One of the golds grabbed him by the tail and started pulling him out of his hiding place! I couldn't believe it. They actually guarded the escape route and wouldn't let the little guy out. They had lost track of the other. Then he poked his head out, and they were all over him.

By the time I got the dwarves out, they were stressed pretty bad. I gave them a bit of time to chill. Meanwhile, the golds started harassing every other fish in the tank - which they hadn't done before. Well, maybe a bit, but nothing like this. Before long, everybody was stressing out - human and fish alike. I netted out the golds and put them into a bucket with an airstone.

The dwarves are back in the 55g tank, and seem to be recovering. The golds are in the bucket.

My question is, what do I do with them? I doubt that a bit of time in solitary is going to chill them out. I don't think they can go back into that tank. I don't have another tank, and I don't have room for one. I need to find a new home for the bullies, maybe the LFS can be of some help tomorrow.

Will the gouramis make it overnight in a bucket with an airstone? From the way it looks from here, they are going to have to. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the two.
 
yes, they'll be fine in the bucket overnight. when i had to move my tanks i threw my fish in a 55 gal and a 35 gallon cooler for a few days with a heater and air pump. everyone made it without a problem. i would suggest trying to get your lfs to take them off your hands. i thin kthat would be your best bet.
 
i had same thing happen

This story reminds me exactly what
happend to me with my first two gold gouramis they were the first
2 fish I got ever since i was into bala sharks when i was a kid
but i thought the gouramis were a peacefull nice looking fish
but i had them in a well stocked 30 gal and ya i would occasionally
always loose a couple of fish and realized the gouramis were actually
really territorial sometimes and somewhat aggresives. Thats
why its always the best thing to try to do research on any fish you buy
and learn if there a good communitry fish or if they do well only with same size fish. So when i decided to take the gouramis out i put them in a outdoor pond bucket that we had they didnt make it very long as they quickly sank to the bottom and died i didnt know that they would die and it was real sad i didnt mean for that to happen to them, they were after all just fish being fish i guess taking em back to the fish store would be the best bet ;[[[
 
They were probably close to breeding....

I'm assuming these fish were about 3 to 4 inches? Did you notice a bubble nest or breeding rituals? My guess is they were ready to breed...gouramis will get pretty testy during breeding...
 
They were about 4 inches. If the dorsal fin shape info I have been seeing is accurate, I would have to rule out breeding, as they both appeared to be males.

I have seen where two males can be bad news together. I don't know. It was bad here. There was no sign of a bubble nest being built that I could see - I would have noticed as closely as I tend to check things out. They weren't the biggest in the tank at the beginning, but htey did outgrow everybody else. They had been the obvious 'bosses', but no open aggresion - putting a replacement dwarf in there seemed to have caused them to go into full-on bully mode.

I suspect that the golds have been intimidating the others for a while. It has been 24 hours now, and everybody in the tank seems to be much calmer. I think they have all been nervous or the fishy equivalent.
 
One thing that I did to get my blue gourami from attacking my pink kisser is put them in solotary. Keep them in the same tank, just put them in a floating mason jar, or (what I did) put them in a small breeding net that hangs in the tank. Do this for 30 minutes to an hour everytime it got aggressive. Do be carefull not to stress them out too bad. It took about a week and a half to calm mine, but he no longer bother my pink kisser.
 
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