Golden Gourami attacking all my Tetras

[Belasta]

Hi,
I have had tropical fish in the past - mainly Oscars and convicts etc until I passed them into my mum.
But we have never had any experience in the smaller tropical fish.

My husband i and have a small 55ltr planted tank and cycled for months - all stats are correct for tropical so decided to purchase some rainbow tetra, in the store I enquired about the golden Gourami and whether they can get on with other fish as we were thinking about purchasing a couple more fish in the near future.

The store attendant said they get on well with tetra if they are in large schools (we got 5) and very peaceful so we purchased 2.

Floated the fish for an hour then gradually introduced them bit by bit and they all looked happy.

Within a couple of hours we noticed the tetra split and scattered across the tank and saw the gourami approach a tetra each and in turn began biting their tails.

We have since taken all the tetra out and put them into an isolation tank.

Is there any way this is just new tank behaviour or am I going to have to purchase a new tank for the tetra - and what breeds would be safe with Golden Gourami?

 

[Demeter32]

The golden gourami is just a color variation of the blue or 3 spot gourami and they are known to go after smaller tetras and eat them. I don't think you will have much luck keeping the gourami and the tetras together so I say return the gourami. That tank is too small for them anyways, they get around 5-6 inches and a 20gal is the minimum tank size (yours is about 15gals).

There are other species of gourami that should do much better than the goldens. Dwarf honey gourami are probably the most peaceful ones around. Not only do they stay small, they get along with their own kind (unlike the 3 spot). You could easily keep a male/female pair in that tank.

 

[fluttermoth]

I agree with Demeter, I'd return those gouramis if you can.

They are very aggressive fish, and there's not much you can keep with them, tbh. I had one that was given to me (after the previous owner threatened to flush it down the toilet after it had massacred her three foot community) and I ended up keeping it with a couple of big catfish; nothing else could put up with the bullying

 

[Belasta]

Thanks guys,
I had my suspicions the guy was incorrect - he was telling us we could mix several different types at the same time to get us to buy more which even I would be cautious about introducing too many too quickly.

I've had fish nipping each other in the past but I could handle them but these new gourami are bloody vicious and just went straight for the little ones once they dispersed.

I'll sort out another tank for the gourami and keep them seperate.
We did enquire how big they could get but told they would only grow to 2cm which we thought were fine but clearly it was wrong too.

Thanks again x

 

[Ch4rlie]

A little note regarding Honey Gouramis, they may be more peaceful than the larger 3 spots but they still can be mean fish.

I had some honey gouramis a while ago. They were vicious bullies to each other and to tankmates. These need to be kept in groups of at least 5 to spread aggression, if you have only 3 for example the more dominant two will bully the weaker until it ultimately dies.

And would suggest to have at least 2 females to 1 male, preferably 3 to 1 but identifying males and females in LFS tanks is not easy due to washed out colourations and marking due to stress.

I rehomed all the honey gouramis after a while as just did not like them anymore. Beautiful and sedate at times but mean imho.

With the right sized tank and aquascaping set up with broken lines of sight and hiding places, this can be a great species to keep but not in small groups or with certain tankmates.