10 Gallon Inhabitants

[dartos]

I am still going through the fishless cycle, but I am planning out the fish to get once I am finished. I have a 10 G tank with some live Cabomba plants and I was wondering if I could have some gouramis.

I would really like to have Dwarf Gouramis only because of their coloration. I am hoping to also put neon or cardinal tetras in the tank and I think that these two red and blue colored fish would look great together. Can I put a Dwarf Gourami in a 10 gallon? I have read about other people putting up to 4 gouramis in a 20 gallon, so I hope this will be alright.

If I can, then would it be a good idea to get a male and female pair or a male and two females or just a male on its own? Thank you in advance, I hope you can make me feel better about my future tank.

 

[GSD]

a pair of dwarfs could fit in there but not 2 males

 

[Destany]

I agree, a male and female would be fine. What variation are you looking at? I do actually recommend a male with two females though, they should be fine in a 10g tank with adequate maintanance.
I think you'll see a much more interesting tank than if you kept one male alone.

 

[dartos]

Thank you both for the responses. I will have to look into the variations of dwarfs because I didn't know that there were any. I only first saw them at my LFS and decided that they were what I wanted for my tank.

I have another question: If I was to buy a male and two females (assuming I can find the females), would we still have room for either neon or cardinal tetras? I know this is will be approaching the limit of the tank very quickly, but we would really like one other kind of species in there.

Thanks again for the responses. I can't wait to be able to buy them now that I know I can have them.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I would suggest a single male would be a better choice. A 10 is not very big and with a pair you may get spawning. Unfortunately, goruamis are a lot like bettas in this respect. Once there are eggs in the nest the male will go to great lengths to keep the female away, even going so far as to kill her.

Dwarf flames are nice looking fish but the females are drab compared to the males and often hard to find.

 

[Macracantha]

I would go for a male and a little shoal of neons...get a female when you have a breeder tank set up and you want to spawn them!

 

[Morrgan]

I agree with the previous two posters, only one male sounds best. Dwarf gourami males can be very nasty towards females sometimes and a 10 gal is too small for them to share safely.

 

[mattski]

Will a single dwarf gourami still get bored and uproot plants to build the nests?

If you feed a dwarf gourami well, will it still eat at your plants?

 

[sylvia]

Provide some floating plants and that will reduce damage to your plants. Dwarf gouramies won't 'uproot' plants to build their nests. They sometimes nip a few pieces off to help them but I have never had a dwarf gourami completely destroy a plant. Also, it has nothing to do with boredom. Any happy male dwarf gourami who is in good condition will try to build a nest. Oh and gouramies are omnivorous by nature so some plant matter in their diet is good for them but they don't normaly eat plants in your aquarium so don't worry about that.

As for just keeping a single male, that would be fine and you could include 8 or so neons or 6 cardinals or rummynoses. If you kept a male and 2 females you might see some more chasing and territoriality on the male's part but it's still possible in a very well planted tank. You wouldn't have space for tetras though as there would be no space for an adequately-sized school. The single gourami would probably be better as you are not looking to breed and the females aren't as brightly colored.