Yesterday I saw some fish in my lfs which they called 'gourami paraiso' (paradise gourami), which turned out to be macropodus opercularis. I really love gouramis, and these fish looked beautiful. However, before buying them, I wondered whether anybody could give me some more info on these fish, such as minimum tank size, water parameters, etc? Especially all the 'do's' and 'don't's' with regard to these fish.

Water here is quite hard (pH 8 ), would that be acceptable for instance?

Thanks so much in advance.

This post has been edited by Biulu: Mar 15 2007, 04:16 PM

8 sounds very high... have you ever thought about keeping African cichlids? ( paradise fish can however, be kept in water as high as this... JUST! )

I got one small male ( males are more colourful ) approx 2 weeks ago and have had no problems... apart from the fact that they can jump! ( tight fitting lid is pretty necessary... )

They grow up to 10cm ( fully grown ) and, as a result, also need a medium sized tank ( around 70+ litres... )
When they are young, many fish can be kept together, but when they are adults they battle as much as male betta's...
Plenty of swimming space and planted areas ( more for the females benefit )... Breeding is easy and they are pretty adaptable... I would recommend keeping 1 male to 2 - 4 females...

Cheers...

This post has been edited by Corin Castle: Mar 15 2007, 08:13 PM

If you want to get one of these, I'd suggest you stick with a single male and keep him alone in a 15-20 gallon tank (though the larger the better). They are one of the hardiest fish around and will tolerate not only your high pH but low temperatures as well (they don't, therefore, need a heater - though one is strongly reccomended).

Single males can sometimes be kept alongside shrimp if the tank is quite heavily planted and there are large pebbles or ceramic pots or other difficult-to-access hiding places for them to hide away from the paradisefish.

The big downside to these fish is their aggression. They are extremely territorial (the males, particularly) and will attack both each other and other tankmates. Unlike many other gouramies, paradisefish are also perfectly capeable of catching the sort of small, active fish - like danios or barbs - normally kept with more aggressive species.

If you plan on a group, you need to go for a single male with at least 3 females, plant very heavily and allow about 10 gallons pe fish. Large rainbowfish and most catfish and larger barbs will work as tankmates in this sort of setup.

Keep in mind that, if they decide to spawn - which they do quite readily - the male will become very aggressive and will pose a serious threat to his tankmates.

Other than this disadvantage, paradisefish are wonderful fish and full of character. If you are prepaired to give one a tank of his own, you should definitely go for it

The lfs is keeping them in unheated tanks (water temperature here is around 20 - 21 degrees), and they are around 3 cm, so small.

If I would buy these small paradisefish with tiger barbs of around the same size, would they then happily grow together, or could this pose problems later? Would any rainbowfish do


This post has been edited by Biulu: Mar 16 2007, 07:57 PM

No, actually I have never thought about african cichlids. Do not know much about them..... I do see cichlids here, such as oscars, and other fancy colours, but I have avoided agressive fish until now to gain more experience with the gouramis I have now. The other thing is that I like planted tanks, and I understood that cichlids prefer rocks? Although it might be something to consider as I have an undergravel filter, and it is not easy to keep my plants well in here.

May I ask you with what kind of other fish you are keeping the paradise fish you just got?

i just recently got my paradise male and he seems to get along fine with my tiger barbs and even my bolivian rams. the only one in my tank he has a problem with is my female dwarf gourami, but all he does it chase her. VERY beautiful fish though.

I've got a paradise fish. Gavin is very aggressive, he ended up in a tank all by himself since he was on the point of murdering his tank mates. Apart from being way to aggressive these guys are awesome fish, they react to you when you go past and flare and try and jump out of their tank and he's always busy doing something or other in his tank. You can get them to jump for food to which is kinda cool.

Definitely gorgeous fish though, Gavin's an albino and he's really starting to color up now, with brilliant orange stripes, looks very striking.

He is on his own... In my 25 litre planted nano ( link at the bottom... )

stargirly1208 - watch your tank closely. That truce your paradisefish has with his tankmates is almost certainly only temporary and your female dwarf will be the first to pay the price.

While tiger barbs are less likely to be attacked than many other fish, they are nippy and can, therefore, actually provoke an attack by harassing the paradisefish. If you must keep it with other fish, first consider going for a female (or better yet a group of 4 or more females) as they are not territorial and far less aggressive and keep loaches/catfish as tankmates. If you want rainbowfish to keep with them, you'll need to go for the larger species (like Glossolepis incisus) and a larger tank to match.

Thanks for all the advice! I think that for now I'd better leave it then, as I am looking to stock a 120 litre tank, and to be honest, I am not willing to dedicate this tank entirely to the paradise fish. Somewhat later on, a 60 litre tank might become available, and then I will reconsider.

i sadly had to take my tiger barbs in to work to sell them as they were causing major chaos in my tank. i had quite a few fish with damaged fins and on close observation the barbs were the culprits. barbs ideally need to be kept in tanks of their own species in high numbers