Dwarf Gouramis

[jazzx101]

Do you find that in your experience with dwarf gouramis, they don't tend to really eat flakes? I read in a bunch of places that they would accept floating flakes, and it seems correct except my gouramis tend to stay close to the bottom of the tank most of the time, or at least in enough vegetation where they don't even see the flakes before they get eaten by something else. I've been feeding them Bio-Bled tropical fish food that sinks and they've been eating that, but just wondering about your experiences.

 

[sylvia]

All my gouramies will eat flake but appreciate some live foods, especialy blood worms, as well as frozen or freeze-dried versions. What other fish are in with your dwarfs? They only hide if they feel intimidated by larger, more boisterous or aggressive fish (or if they are overcrowded with other dwarfs or sometimes other gouramies). IME they also tend to spend more time near the surface and your's would probably benefit from having some floating cover (I imagine there aren't any floating plants if they hide near the bottom). Anyway, as long as they are eating SOMETHING they should be ok. Do you feed them any natural foods? Try it, if you don't, and see if that gets them to leave their hiding place.

 

[jazzx101]

Neither of them is hiding really...one keeps swimming back and forth along the bottom of the tank, while the other is in my heavily planted section of the tank..he's near the top working on the bubblenest usually, but that part of the tank has a lot of vegetation right up at the top, enough to block his view of any food floating around.

 

[Doggfather]

If i were a fish i wouldn't like flake food either Although fish eat flakes, i wouldn't go as far as saying they 'like' them, try giving it a varied diet of live/frozen foods, floating pallets and maybe a small amount of flakes and that will hopefully get your gourami to become a bit more active at feeding time