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Yes the females are more of a blue, ours have very faint stripes. I dont know how they are going to do, but i think i have done all i can, thanks.

We inherited a turtle and set up, or lack of! She just had a rock to get out of water and a pathetic light, she never used to get out of the water. Her shell was really bad aswel. My husband then built her a ramp put in some decent lighting added a nice backdrop and most importantly we put a lid on the tank which covers about three quarters of the tank. We are not sure what done it but as soon as we put her back in the tank after the alterations she was up on the ramp basking, and now gets up there several times a day. We think it was the lid as this makes the room temperature inside the tank warm and not such a shock to the system coming out of warm water. I hope this helps.

I agree with timtam22 you need a great filter system, we were given a huge dinner plate size female and the tank came with a pathetic filter the tank used be foul in a few days after a clean out. We then introduced a smaller turtle for company and were faced with twice as much filth and cleaning them out every second day. A canister filter we found worked really well. The tank still gets dirty with debris but the water is clean and we only need to do a couple of water changes a week and a good clean out maybe every three weeks sometimes longer, depends on what they have eaten. Try and buy two together, it took our female a bout a month to realise that she couldnt eat the new fella, i think she thought he was live bait!! They now get on great.

Hi to all!! I have already jumped the gun and posted some questions before introducing ourselves, but was worried about our little gouramis. As my husband and i are new to tropical fish we are still trying to find out all the info we can to be successful fish keepers. We set up a tank about 3 months ago and have got: 3 red banded Gouramis 9 Neons 2 Bristle noses 2 Rainbow Tetras I have really fallen for the bristle noses which we are really enjoying at the moment and hopefully they will breed. We also have 2 turtles. We have already had some great advice which we are very thankful for and will continue to enjoy learning some more on this fantastic site!!

Thanks guys for all this great info!! I did a water change today, the ammonia was nil, ph had stabilised again to 7.0 and the nitrite was back to safe levels. I have now added a media to our filter to grow "good" Bacteria to the tank. I have also added cycle and tonic salt. When i brought the gouramis they were in a tank with another that had a big cyst on it, i shouldnt of got them, maybe that was a sign that we were going to have problems!! Any way i will just potter along with them and maybe look into antibiotics. I gave them a feed of blood worms today too and they really enjoyed that,but dont seem too fussed on the flake food, can you get fussy fish?? Anyway thanks for all the great information and i will keep you posted on their progress.

Hi, thanks for all that info, we did a water change on the saturday when we discovered the high nitrite then another on monday and am about to do another today, the nitrite is definatly coming down but now the ph is higher than its usual 7.0 its gone up to 7.5, Is there any thing i can do if its parasites??

Did you have the same kind (red banded) aswel? because these were active too when i got them, now are hiding and dont spend alot of time eating either, one actually looks like it is quite skinny, man this is stressful, i got some filter medium to help with the building of good bacteria to combat the nitrite, our aqua clear 70 only has ammonia granules, carbon and a sponge at the bottom, petstore said that could b the prob with the nitrite.

They dont look sick but they havnt always done this, they used to swim around alot more. The male is the bossiest fish in the tank and chases around the two girls alot but he hides aswel. I cant see any obvious signs of illness, i dont really know what to do next. I am having a slight problem with high nitrite though which i am trying to sort, maybe that could be an issue?? the other fish are fine though.

They were sold to us as gouramis from a pet store (dwarf i think) and on the net i found a picture of them and they were called red striped gouramis with the male having red stripes and the females are blue with subtle red stripes the picture looked just like them but i could be wrong as we are new to tropical fish!! The tank is 90cm long and 120 litres. it has been up and running for about 3 months.

The water ph is 7.0, ammonia nil but the nitrite is slightly high, We have had them about one month. Yes all three sit on the bottom. At feeding times they are active and they swim around the tank but i do notice them resting just above the stones quite alot,and hiding.

Sorry to hear that, if you ever need to put a fish to sleep i heard from a vet that the kindest way to put a fish to sleep is to put it in an icecream container with some tank water and the lid on and put it in the freezer, this way the fishes body just cools down and they go off to sleep and eventually die. Minimal suffering and pretty quick. Unfortunatly with all small creatures there isnt really a painless way to do it but this is probably the best way i have heard of.

We have a community tank set up with three striped gouramis, one is a male and two females, 2 bristlenose, some neons and two rainbow tetras. The Gouramis seem to spend alot of time on the bottom of the tank, they each have their favourite spot they like to go, they are eating ok and swim around occasionally but do spend alot of time resting on the bottom. Is this normal for Gouramis??