rachel4 Posted July 19, 2005 Report Share Posted July 19, 2005 Hi I am new to this site...lots of great advice too I might add...recently set up aprox 90l tank....given four gouramis - one three spot ( or blue ) gourami which chases the others around all day.... it is only slightly bigger than others.... is this going to be a problem? am worried about the stress factor grateful for any advice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 It could be a problem. The blue 3 spots are known to be a bit stroppy. Keep an eye on them all and look for signs of stress from the others - clamped fins, trying to hide etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 20, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 Have been watching them quite a bit today , blue definitely stroppy!! the two pearls seem to stick together and doing fine but the one bronze coloured gourami not looking happy.... trying to hide behind filter and big sad face should i seriously think about taking blue out of tank?? if so is there anyone who might like to do a swap..... blue is about 10-11cm......and cheers for your reply Caryl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 I would get rid of the blue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 Uhhh... :oops: ..what's "stroppy"??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 Stroppy means aggressive Caper. Isn't it funny how words we take for granted aren't known in other places? Makes you wonder how anyone learns to speak English with so much slang in common useage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 We also have four gourami, our gold gourami is the stroppy one. What sex are your gourami? We keep One pearl male and 3 three spot females. More hiding places and floating plants worked for us, the fish aren't stressed at all now. Everything is fine as long as all the other females in the tank know she is the boss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caserole Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 Shannon, the gold gourami and 3 spot are the same species . the gold simple maybe a male or dominant female. does the gold have a larger slitly pointed dorsel fin or id it the same as the girls? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 The gold gourami is one of the 3 three spot females I mentioned. Sorry if I didn't explain properly. Looks like she's full of eggs at the moment as well. Could be why she's so grumpy and yes Casserole, she is the dominant female. The pearl male is the overall boss, but he's almost full grown and two of the girls (including Goldy) are already bigger than him, so he'd better watch out!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 not sure what sex they are Shannon, maybe you could help me figure that one out....also how do you know when they are full grown i.e how big do they get.........thanks for the tips, will get some more hiding places Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 Easy to sex them. Look at the dorsal fin on top of the body, and the tail fins. The males have longer pointed fins than the females, who have more rounded ends on their fins. The females also tend to be rounder in the body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 21, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 now it all makes sense... thanks Caryl, the big blue one is a male and the one he is picking on is a smaller male...... the two that are left to themselves are females Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 21, 2005 Report Share Posted July 21, 2005 A more dominant male will do that. Keep an eye on the smaller fella for signs of stress and make sure he has somewhere to go to get away from the bully if he wants to - a nice big plant or rock to hide behind for instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 yeah the smaller one is not quite vertical any more, although i wouldnt say it is lying on its side , about half way between the two.... and hiding behind the filter, fins OK tho, I have heard it mentioned quite a lot, about gourami's being bullies.... think i need a time-out corner for Mr Blue Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vapo Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Hi Rachel. Are they the only fish in the tank? It may help to get a couple more females. A tip we were given was to have 3 males and twice as many females. This way any bullying is spread around. Problem is these fish grow to around 6 inches in length and I'm not sure a 90l tank would be adequate for this amount of fish, though 2 more females might be OK. We (Shannon and I) had a problem with our golds - we had two. One would bully the other relentlessly 'til we had to take her back to the LFS. The submissive one left in the tank would just hide behind the filter all day and was very skittish. We introduced 2 more females and a pearl male (he'll only get to around 4inches). We also put a big stump ornament in that reaches to about 3/4 of the way up the tank. Our gold loved this and became the bully/boss of the females. There is also a 'hill' ornament in there which reaches the surface and quite a few plants now and the gourami seem to love it, so pehaps a couple more hiding places too? Here's a pic of our tank - note it's very hard to see but we actually have 20 fish in there! Also, our plants have grown a lot since that pic was taken. Good Luck, Vapo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 22, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 hey hows it going...I have the four larger gouramis and two pink kissers, a plec and 2 clown loaches, also am fish-sitting 5 small white catfish at moment so they are in there too. The plec is quite small and so are the catfish so i dont think they are crowded. I'm not sure what sex the kissers are, but yeah I have 2 boys and 2 girls so not a good mix huh...if the pink kissers were female would that count? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 22, 2005 Report Share Posted July 22, 2005 Are they all in the same tank? You are going to need something a lot bigger. The kissing gouramis grow up to 30cm, the plec (assuming it is a common one) can get 60cm and the clown loaches also grow large (but very slowly). A pair of 'kissers' will need a 1.2m x 60cm x 60cm tank by themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 23, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 23, 2005 i didnt realise kissers could get that big... yeah i thought when they were all bigger i would prob need bigger tank, how big do gouramis get? also i was wondering, i did a lot of water changes until my tank settled down, but is it common practice to keep doing it weekly? and do i also have to do water changes in a cold water tank with 2 gold fish? thanks again for all the good advice you guys have given me so far Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted July 23, 2005 Report Share Posted July 23, 2005 The other gouramis get to 6 - 8cm. It is normal for some to do weekly water changes and good for the fish. How much and how often depends on stocking levels. Some people like to change 10% every week but others will do 20 - 25% every 2 weeks. I personally rarely do water changes but I have a very good filter and few fish. Those who do the regular water changes will have happier fish and they will breed often and regularly (the fish that is). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Isn't it funny how words we take for granted aren't known in other places? Makes you wonder how anyone learns to speak English with so much slang in common useage. So true Caryl...lol...so true! Vapo...nice tank...the fish are invisible..aren't they...jk...looks really nice! Is the white with the 3 spots are gourami? Very pretty! Oh...just looked again..2 spots :oops: ...the other is his eye! But, Shannon, you have your own tank don't you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rachel4 Posted July 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Caper i read somewhere that the eye is the third spot anyway.... thats why they are called a three-spot gourami Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted July 24, 2005 Report Share Posted July 24, 2005 Oh, so it is considered a three spot then He sure is a pretty fish. So does that mean a 2 spot, one is the eye as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 25, 2005 Report Share Posted July 25, 2005 Thats mine and Vapos tank caper, we also have three other tanks(shared) as well. We are using one for breeding, one just has Tetras and a Pleco and we havent set the other one up yet. That gourami is a young girl blue gourami, shes very friendly and tries to nibble your hand when you put in the water. I love my gourami! They even try to talk! (they make little clicky sounds). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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