Aggressive Gold Gourami

[mayurkirti]

I am back to fish keeping again. I have a 10g tank right now with only pair of gold gouramis. I have a fairy large stone and a fake plant in the tank to allow the fish to hide and feel confy when they want to.

Last week I got my first pair of gold gouramis. The male proved to be excessively aggressive and territorial and nipped all fins off the female. I had to separate them on occasions but ended up keeping them together rest of the time. After I separated the male from the tank on Thursday before going to work, the female looked fine but it did not eat any food at all. Thats when I knew that the damage was done beyond control. She got extremely sick over next few hours and eventually died.

My LFS was kind enought to take back the make and give me a different pair. We tried to fish a calmer male this time. Its been about a day since I have the new pair and the new male is showing the SAME behavior. To make it worse, the female looks helpless most of the time and gets bullied very easily. I have temporarily partitioned the tank but I have no idea what to do next.

Is 10 gallon tank too small for the pair? Should I bring one or two more females for the male? I think my LFS can take the male back and give me a female in exchange. I am happy to keep only females if the fish dont mind.

Any comments?

Thanks.

 

[lil-x-me...x]

gold gouramis?

are they honey gouramis?

if im right id say golden gouramis are too big for your tank?

can you identify which gourami:

[URL="http/www.aquariumfishparadise.com.au/Ima...ouramiLarge.jpg"]http/www.aquariumfishparadise.com.au/Ima...ouramiLarge.jpg[/URL]

[URL="http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile2.html"]http/badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile2.html[/URL]

golden gouramis can grow up to 15cm, which would outgrow your tank. honey gouramis (may have been mistaken by) are smaller (cuter) and are much better for a smaller tank (i have a honey gourami and a red robin gourami in my 10gal tank)

erm but for the fighting issue, id get a female instead, unless you have a bigger tank for more females then its a nono for anymore.
really it would be a lot better if you could possibly swap them for honey gouramis, they can be a lot less dominant and if you get one male to two females it should be fine. have you any other tank mates planning to go in?

thanks x

 

[mayurkirti]

I am sorry, they are golden gouramis like this: http/www.aqua-fish.net/imgs/fish/gold-gourami.jpg
(Your first link is broken, that might be it)

I was hoping to add more fish to the tank. I dont think the store will take both fish back now. I think the best thing to do now is to swap the male with a female as you said. I will get a bigger tank in future. The gouramis are not that big right now.

Thanks.

 

[crazychris]

A 10g is a bit small for them really as they do get big. I've found that unless you want to breed it's best to just have one golden,opaline or 3 spot gourami as they do tend to fight, especially the males. Two females may do too. I've a large adult golden male in my 23g but can't put any other gourami in with him as he just starts on it straight away, yet is fine with all the other fish and never bullies any of them, even smaller fish. He just won't tolerate any other gourami in there! If you look in your LFS at a tank full of them you'll see chasing going on too. I tried another male golden, female golden, opalines etc and they get torn to shreds in hours. If I were you I'd return the male and just keep one female and you'll be fine. Pearl gouramis don't seem to fight like this so you'd be okay with a pair of those. As others say, males of the smaller gouramis like honey, dwarf, red-robin don't seem to have this aggression either.