Gouramis

Hey dwf, Great topic. By the way my arowana is doin great. Comin back real good now. Antenae are even growin back. Anyway, I'm thinkin of gettin another tank, maybe a 29-40 and tryin to figure out what to put in it. I want some swordtails or mollies and some neons, but I also want some dwarf gouramis. I saw the one reply that they don't like neons. Bummer. :( I want color and the dwarfs have it, and so do the neons, but if I'm gonna get a fight, I'll have to decide on one or the other. Can anyone tell me how aggressive they get with baby fry? I had a tank about 7 years ago and made lots of hiding places for the fry. I had mollies, zebras, cories, a weather loach (not sure of the real name, but when a storm was comin he'd go nuts) and a pleco. About 1 or 2 fry would survive, sometimes none, per liter and would basically replace the older fish that died off. Will the gouramis tear the tank up tryin to get em? Guess I'm so used to my oscars tearin my tank up when I put rosies in and havin to put it back together, I just don't want the same problem in the smaller tank. I actually want to get this tank more for my girlfriend and want it to be low maintenance for her. She hates my 150 but I think she would like a tank this size. Especially the babies thing. :p
 
Travelinman,

Glad to hear your arowana is getting better, I was following your thread about it.

Keeping smaller gouramis with neons/other small tetras is hit and miss. I'd say that *most* of the time a dwarf gourami or a honey gourami will be okay with smaller tetras, but it's always possible to have troubles. If you really want dwarfs and neons, I'd just try it and if the gouramis cause trouble, take them back to the store?

I actually have a "Red Sunset" Dwarf Gourami still living in one of old killifish growout tanks (it cured a hydra problem and I left it in there) and it never bothered any fry that wouldn't fit in it's mouth (I learned this one the hard way, but I'm kinda dumb - luckily dwarf gouramis have small mouths for their size lol) and it certainly never hunted the fry like an oscar/predator would do. I only caught it eating fry that one time and they were very tiny E. Annulatus babies... too small to be out of the first stage of growout actually, but that's another story...

If there's cover for the fry and the Gourami is well-fed it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Any fry that survive the other fish and the parents should slip past the gourami too, unless you get one that really likes to root through plants. My dwarf gourami is very docile, but as always, YMMV.
 
I'm a big fan of gouramies.

Travellinman I am currently keeping a powder blue dwarf with cardinal tetras without a problem. I have found gouramies to be quite peaceful. Occasionally they chase each other around but that is the most aggression I have ever seen. Larger ones like gold, opaline, and 3spot are very hardy.
 
I have a gold gourami as the centerpiece to my 29 gallon and i love it. Gold gouramis have really striking color and as Ryoken said they are not picky eaters at all, pretty much any food I put in there gets eaten up right away.
 
i have 2 neon bluye dwarf gouramis ina 29 but they have fights sometime acctually one is hurt :( but the reason i like em? is that they have a greta personality and they look like chiclids a little

also...for the one that is hurt i removed the carbon and put the alo vera heling stuff in. anything else i can do to keep out bacteria?

[edit] oh and i may be thinkin of a giant gourami but i still gota research
 
my dwarf flame gourami rocks. He's colorful, graceful and peaceful. I love watching him swim around.
 
I like the blues, opaline and pearls, they are compatible with most other fish, and I like their personality. I have never liked kissing gourami's or giants. Dont see the appeal in an almost colorless fish. Dwarfs don't appeal to me much because I like fish with a little more size to them. Something to bear in mind is that every one likes different things, whatever you do don't let the LFS pick what goes in your tank. I wouldn't own a clown loach because I think they are unnatractive, the next person in the store might think they are the coolest fish ever bred. To Each their own.
 
I don't really care for the 3 spot gouramis either, blue, opaline, nor the gold. For the most part, they're a little bit too aggressive for my taste. The ones that I have currently and love are the pearls and the honey dwarf gouramis. I never had luck with powder blue ones. I bought this month's AQUARIUM FISH magainze which has articles on gouramis.
 
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