Gouramis: Is this normal?

[TipStylez]

Ok my gold gourami seems to like chasing my blue gourami alot. And im guessing my gold one is a male and blue a female from the larger dorsol fin. But they chase eachother but i havent seen any bite marks or anything on eather. And b4 they chase eachother they sneek up on one another with their lil wisker fins pointed outward. What dose this mean? And my gouramis love spending time next to my angel fish...

Thanks
-Q

 

[sky.eyes.woman]

Some species of gouramis can be a bit quarrelsome, and some are not...but then there are individuals that don't fit that 'rule' either. You've got them all together now, so watch carefully for really bad fights and injuries, fish hiding all the time, fish keeping others from the food, etc. BTW, who was in the tank first and how long have they been together?

 

[SuperD]

First off, you need a bigger tank. Most gourami's thrive best in a 55 gallon tank (or bigger). Second, most gouramis are extremely territorial and if you do get a bigger tank you will probably notice that they won't chase each other as often. Usually the bigger of the gourami's is the one that is the dominant of the colony.

 

[TipStylez]

all my other fish are peacful with eachother even sleep next to one another, but the gouramis is the first time i ever had this problem.

The first fishs in my tank was 4 clown loaches

 

[PurpleSmurf]

All of your fish are very docile and well suited for community life (if far too big for your tank). The gouramis are too unless mixed with their own kind in a space too small for the two to claim aqdequte territories. Really, the best way to think of them is as slightly toned down bettas; you can mix multiple males if you find fish with proper tempermants / have enough space / get lucky (my gourami would mix quite well with others, he's very timid and un-territorial); you can mix them with females, but the females run the chance of being treated as brutally as males.

 

[450rGuy48]

I think gouramis are very underestimated when it comes to aggression. I have a gold and blue also, but the blue is currently on melafix in the hoplital tank because the gold one chewed his tail off! The gold is still in the main tank and holds its own just fine with various cichlids including a Jack Dempsey, and two convicts. ( Which are supposed to be highly aggressive, but I'm beginning to wonder) The gold one doesn't have so much as one nip in its fins. I think the blues are just wimps ! BTW, the blue one is the bigger of the two, by about 3/4 to 1 inch. (He's a little shorter now) So sizing doesn't always determine the aggressor.

 

[vudu]

sounds about right... i had a blue gourami and a platinum gourami in the same tank and the platinum guy wouldnt stop harrassing the blue guy so we ended up taking the platinum guy back in exchange for a pearl gourami. Then, the whimpy blue guy started harrassing the new pearl guy so we ended up taking them both back. Too much conflict for my liking.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

The 3-Spot, Blue, Opaline, Gold, and Platinum Gouramis are all the same species(Trichogaster trichopterus)....just different color morphs. Temperment varies from individual to individual regardless of color.
Pearl Gouramis, on the other hand, are among the most peaceful of the gouramis and don't usually mix well with the more aggressive 3-Spot.
I agree about the space requirements for Gouramis of this size as they can all reach the 4-6" range and are very territorial..especially the males. I'm almost inclined to say keep only one pair in anything under 75g. Keeping the temperature below 79F would help to calm them down as well. Higher temps usually lead to higher aggression. I've kept gouramis just fine in 75-76F water and they were pretty calm. Raise the temp above 80F and these fish would go ape-****.