Gourami Questions!!

[G0uRaMiLuVa]

i have 2 three-spot gouramis, a red-fire (dwarf) gourami, and a pink kissing gourami.
Originally, however, i had 5 fish to start off. i went to petsmart and bought 2 red-fire gouramis and three small black phantoms. Later one of my red-fire gouramis died.
After that i waited a couple weeks and bought 5 more gouramis 4rm wal-mart. i bought 2 three-spot gouramis, 2 pink kissing gouramis, and a red-fire gouramis. so in the end my tank looked like this:

10g tank: large cave, 3 fake plants, and a fake turtle
2 red-fire gouramis
2 three-spot gouramis
2 pink kissing gouramis
3 black phantoms

About two days later my old red-fire had died. and a couple days after that one of my kissing gouramis died also. I noticed in my tank however, before both died that they chased each other around alot, it seemed rather aggressive for fish that were said to be peaceful.

When i went to petsmart, i had done some research and had also held a 30 minute conversation n what type of fish i should get for such a small tank. The woman had me convinced they were the best for my tank.

When i went to wal-mart the lady told me basically the same stuff so.

I went on vacation a couple days ago and left them one of those vacation food stones. Well when i got back and went to feed them my three black phantoms were dead and being eaten. so now my tank looks like this

10g tank:etc etc
1 red-fire
1 kissing
2 three-spot gouramis

One of the three-spot gouramis seems to chase the other around alot. i see he bothers the other 2 sometimes but chases the other three-spot ALOT. He seems aggressive.. what should i do?.. i dont want them to eventually pick each other off until i have just one fish.... is there anyone who can give me sum advice about my situation?? :help:

 

[biglittlehoss]

Too many fish in tank?

Seems to me that you may have too many fish in the tank. When you buy more fish, they fight for territory, and the weakest and/or newest usually are the ones that go via I am bigger and healthier then you. Additionally, when you add water or do water changes are you using a conditioner?

 

[G0uRaMiLuVa]

i use aqua safe so that my tap water is safe for my fish. might that have something to do with them dying. i change 1/3 of the water every week to keep it clean.

 

[TheZoo]

The gouramis you have in there are too large for your tank. Not to mention that you are overstocked. Youd want to be doing larger and more freheunt water changes, as well. The fish are going to fight for territory, esp if there isnt a good m/f ratio. Id suggest taking them back to the store and getting a few, smaller, more suitable fish.

 

[Cathy G]

What are your water parameters? Is this tank cycled? How long has it been up and running now?

Way too many gouramis btw, they are not peaceful fishies, they can get very territorial and the dominate fish will make the subordinate fishes' lives a misery.

You learned a hard lesson, don't trust everything your local fish store employees say - they can and all too often are wrong. (Especially those who work at the chain store...)

Cathy

 

[G0uRaMiLuVa]

thankz

i see that now... i have to get a bigger tank... we have a 75g one already but my father is settint hat one up for his fish.. so i have to work extra hours @ da pharmacy so i can earn some extra money 2 buy a larger tank becuz like yall said. the fish are to big for that tank.. ill prolly set the larger tank up with the gouramis and 4 or so more fish. And ill prolly set up the smaller tank with 3 or 4 smaller fish. i spoke with my dad and he said settin up a larger tank might help out with my problem becuz those fish , as i see now, dont have enough space and are territorial, i see that now, i understand why only one of them sleeps in that cave lol)

thank you for your help.. i gotta go do sum price checks on those tanks now lol.. cvs pharmacy doesnt pay me enuff as a phamacy tech lol :thm:

 

[graphicdesign_r]

Kissing gouramis should grow over a foot long. Look at your ten gallon tank and picture that.

Now take the fish back to the store, and buy some nice tetras or something.

If you absolutely must have gouramis that tank will hold two PAIRED (one male, one female) dwarf gouramis tops. Maybe some type of bottom feeder (I'm talking a few shrimp or some snails, NO PLECOS OR ALGAE EATERS) or a few small tetras like neons.

If you want to keep what you have you'll need a MUCH bigger tank. If you bought a tank appropriate for pink/kissing gourami you could have more fish, but eventually the pink will eat anything small in there.

 

[graphicdesign_r]

For the pink I would say 75 gallons might be enough.

Never trust LFS employees. Ford salesmen never warned anyone about the problems with the Edsel.

 

[echoofformless]

Beyond being overstocked, gouramis are a semi-aggressive species for the most part (especially the three spots and the kissing gouramis) and what's worse is that the kissing gouramis are too large to keep in a ten gallon tank even by themselves! You pretty much set that tank up as a battle royal ring by overcrowding it with such aggressive fish. Overcrowding brings on aggression even in relatively docile fish, much more in semi-aggressive/aggressive fish.

If you plan to keep three spot or kissing gouramis, you're best to keep them as just one or the other unless the tank is very large indeed...like 75g. The minimum tank size for a kissing gourami by themselves is 30g (and that's pushing it) and I wouldn't keep more than one three spot gourami in a 10g tank (again, kind of pushing it)

You can keep the flame types as more than one, or a few honey gouramis...those are less aggressive. But they also aren't very hardy in my experience.

If you're looking to stock your ten gallon and you're a gourami fan, you can do what I did - one three spot gourami and some smaller fish. But that's it. For example I had a three spot, a cherry barb, two zebra danios and three rasboras. Even that was pretty heavy stock, so I was running two filters. Overstocking and overfeeding are the two most common mistakes aquarists make.



Basically what you need to do is research each individual fish before you buy them, and never ever listen to what the LFS people tell you, especially at a PetsMart or Petco kind of place. Not only are they usually just random hourly employees with little to no training, but even PetsMart themselves has information cards posted about the various species which are often deadly incorrect.


Slow down, read as much as you can on this site and others, maybe look at a few books, and be more careful in your fish selections.

And here's another question - is your tank cycled?

 

[dorkfish]

It was probably the "vacation feeder stone" that killed your phantom tetras. The "feeder stones" realease food to quickly/decompose and lead to an amonia spike, wich is toxic to almost all aquatic life.

Ya, as others said, you need a bigger tank - 75g, as mentioned previously should be suffiecient if you want to keep the kissing gourami, if not, a 29g might (depending on the genders of the three spots) be suffiecient for the three spots and some other fish , although I would keep the drawf in the 10g becuase my three spot gourami literaly broke a drawf gouramies spine, although this isn't always the case, it's best to stay on the side of caution.