Help, Please

S

scv87

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Jan 5, 2003
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Murray, KY
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I recently started a 10 gal. aquarium. I added two gold gouramis. One dominates over the other, causing it to hide most of the time. Are there any other fish that I could add to help solve this problem?

I am new at this, and any help would be great.

Thanks
 
Put some floating plants, real or plastic in the tank to give the less aggressive fish some cover. This will probably help.
Len
 
I wouldn't add more fish. Adding more fish never solves aggression problems when dealing with solitary fish (schooling fish will sometimes calm down when with lots of their own kind...). The more cramped they are, the more they'll fight. I have had gouramis before, and they always fight. They have to establish a heirarchy. Once that's done, all will be fine (or you'll have one less fish...). If the dominant fish is really beating up the other one, causing physical damage, then I suggest moving the weaker fish out. Otherwise, this sounds pretty normal to me....I agree with adding plants for cover, both floating and buried.

Then again, mine were in an aggressive cichlid tank, so I could be wrong when talking about JUST gouramis...
 
Two gold gouramis in a 10? I think that the weaker one will die eventually. It needs to be able to get away from the dominant fish's territory, and a 10 is just too small for this.
 
I had a severe case of this with two blue three spot gouramis and eventually the dominant fish killed the weaker fish. This was in a 30g so your problems may be magnified. But Pinballqueen might be right that once the fish duke it out a little bit all will be fine...Seems like a combination of the suggestions here would be the best way to deal with it, add some more plants (both floating and rooted) and watch the situation and act accordingly...
 
Welcome SCV87...

to Aquaria Central, home of the least aggressive fishkeepers on the Internet :)

I never had this problem myself, but the guy who got me into fishkkeeping had this problem and he took out two fish, they may have been south American cichlids (?). But anyway, he took the two of them, put them into a 10g with a divider down the middle (he just made a screen out of window screen) so the fish could see and smell each other and left them that way for a month or so. Then he added them back to the community tank he had and they kind of left each other alone.

You may be able to adapt that, if your tank is not too filled with stuff. You could use screen, mesh, a piece of plexiglass with holes drilled into it. Let them become very accustomed to each other and develop their own space/territory and then you could remove the divider, maybe after a month. This may be more work up front, but may save you from having to buy a bigger tank.

HTH

Val
 
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