The gift that keeps on giving..

FreshyFresh

FreshyFresh

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Jan 11, 2013
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West Falls NY
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Joel
No matter how many times I've asked the darling bride or lovely children, it still happens from time to time. I wind up with a "gift" fish. At least this one came with a pretty nice looking small sword plant from a LFS. I do have a tank or two that I don't mind risking with a new addition, provided it's an OK fit, so it's not the end of the world. Here's Phyllis the pink kissing gourami in my 29g with plants. I'll eventually move him/her to my 55g if things progress OK. I just broke down, moved and re-did this 29g a week or two ago, thus the super white looking substrate.


 
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Well, Merry Xmas to you! Cute when small like yours seems to be, it will likely grow into a fish sucking 6-8 inch monster. Maybe you Oscar tank eventually?

Nice tank, Phyllis should be ok for a while or so...good luck!
 
The Kisser is one of those fish the LFS should'nt sell to the general public. They get really nasty once they get size on them.
 
I'm kind of surprised at the activity level of this little kisser. He's ALL over the tank and the lips rarely stop skimming the hardscape and plants. I've never noticed him skim the substrate (fine gravel), just the sponges, hard stuff and plants. He's not doing any damage to the plants thankfully. Just skinning the surfaces. He happily sucks flake food from the surface as well.

I've kept gourami in the past. I had two dwarf gourami and a female pearl. All in different tanks. Re-homed the little female honey gourami I had and the little male dwarf flame gourami I had (NASTY little thing) got bloated on me and I couldn't get him out of it. My family loved our female pearl gourami, her name "Pearl" oddly enough :p . She was one of the very first fish I got when I got back into the hobby 4yrs ago. I couldn't find her in the tank one day and found her completely dried out on the floor behind the tank. She must have gotten spooked and shot out the tiny gap behind in one of the glass lids. Had her almost 4yrs. These other gourami were active, but nothing like this kisser. Kisser seems to ignore his smaller tank mates. If he gets mixed up in the school of hatchets, they'll sometimes do that sidle-slap thing where they nudge him out of the way sideways.
 
Hmm, I read the article in your link. Sounds like my Oscar tank housing option is wrong. But I can't imagine keeping 1 with discus as that author did. Ours tried "kissing" our angels, blue gourami & chased smaller fish. Ours too was a "gift" along with some of the fish in the 55g. Maybe moving it made it "forget" it had supposedly lived peacefully with those same fish.
 
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fishorama, do you still have your kissing gourami?
 
^^ LOL

I had some conversations with the fellow over at oscarfish who's had his kisser for 25+ years. It seems his would totally ignore small community type fish, but would turn into an absolute hellion with anything the same size or larger than himself. So odd given they don't have teeth and have a tiny mouth and throat. Given this trait, keeping one of this fish definitely takes some due diligence. You basically have to commit it to it being a center piece fish with much smaller tank mates.
 
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