My Three-spot Gourami keeps attacking the Silver Dollars..

[MyFishAteTheCAt]

My Three-spot Gourami keeps attacking the Silver Dollars, any ideas?

I have a 20 gallon tank, with one three-spot Gourami and a small livingston cichild. Yesterday, three small 1 1/2" silver dollars were added to the tank. The Gourami was very curious at first and kept approach them. The behavior later became more aggressive and now she's attacking them to the point where i had to separate them. I would like to keep all the fishes together, but it's not happening now. No problems with the gourami in the past. Fine with 3 goldfishes and another gourami (before they passed on). Any ideas?

:dance

 

[OrionGirl]

Territory--that's a small tank for a blue spot, and since it's been there for a while, it claims the tank as it's own and doesn't want to share. In the long run, the silver dollars will need a much bigger tank anyway, and in the short term, the gouramie may kill them. Sorry--bigger tank or taking them back are your best options.

 

[Cat]

yup, I agree I had a three spot in my 50gal before and he killed other fish. I tried removing him for a few days to stop him being teratorial and give the new fish a chance to settle in, and when I replaced him he was fine to start with while he settled back in then he started again. In the end I had to take him back!

 

[snakeskinner]

you do realize that livingstoni gets to around 10" don't you? as mentioned, they're cramped and that type of gourami is prone to this anyway. One possible way to calm him down is to move him to another tank for a while and rearrange the tank completely. My gold gourami (very close to 3-spot) is the same way in our 36 gallon corner tank. He bullies any smaller fish than him so we've started "quarantine" when new tankmates are added. We do this by netting him in an 8" net and allowing the net to dangle in the water, similar to a breeding net and allow the added fish an hour or two to get comfortable in the new surroundings. This has slowed down his aggression quite a bit. He will still chase them a bit but not as much as when the new fish were just dumped into the water. Kyle