Post
by Diana » Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:09 am
Gouramis are not social fish. They do not school. At all.
ONE male will set up and defend a territory, usually building a bubble nest. He chases all fish out of his territory, especially near the bubble nest, and an area extending around it.
If a gravid female comes by they will mate, then he chases her out of the territory and guards the bubble nest, eggs and fry.
The female might eat the eggs.
If any other fish besides a gravid female comes by that fish gets chased out.
In nature their territory is about as large as an average aquarium. Depends on the male and the surroundings- plants, driftwood... but a couple of feet across, larger if there is nothing to block the line of sight.
An intruder that does not go away far enough is probably sticking around to challenge the other fish.
In an aquarium, they do not know that the aquarium limits how far away an intruder can go away.
So the dominant fish thinks the other Gouramis are staying too close to his territory, and keeps chasing and attacking to make them go away. Even the females.
Female Dwarf Gouramis are rarely seen in the stores. Not impossible, of course. The color is striped, the same pattern as the male, but instead of being blue and red or some similar combination, the female is blue and silver. As you can imagine, blue and silver are not very distinct from each other. This makes the female Gouramis look sort of like the Powder Blue color morph.
If you want to try several dwarf Gouramis in a tank, then have plenty of upper level plants, either floating or tall plants that reach the surface. WATCH them, and when one starts pushing the others around, or building a bubble nest be ready to move the others. Have a back up plan.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.
Happy fish keeping!