3- Spot Gourami

[twodoctors]

Hi all,

My 3 3-spot gouramis are not playing nice recently. Had them about a month now I think. 3 colour morphs as you can see in my signature. When I got them the blue one (female) was more dominant, and my gold (female) and Opaline (male, smaller than the other 2) are more passive. Over the last week or so (no change to tank, no addition or removal), my gold one has become the boss, and (quite) often ram and "nip" the blue one. The Opaline one now resides in the front corner of the tank, below my powerhead. The other two don't really bothers him. He's still got his nice dark pattern that was missing when I first "rescued" I hardly see him eating food, spend a bit of time hiding in the helmet, though he does come up for air.

I just wonder when I would be ok adding another gourami to the mix, partly to spread the aggression, and partly because I saw "wild" silver morph one on sale in a (L)FS. It is similar size to the gold and blue so in theory should be able to hold its own. Of course I would be looking to get a female.

What do you think?

Adrian

 

[KittyKat]

I just wonder when I would be ok adding another gourami to the mix, partly to spread the aggression, and partly because I saw "wild" silver morph one on sale in a (L)FS. It is similar size to the gold and blue so in theory should be able to hold its own. Of course I would be looking to get a female.

"Spreading the aggression" doesn't really work with gouramis, it is more like "add another aggression" most of the time. They are aggressive fish, which is why I recommend a maximum of one for a 3ft tank usually (I know yours is not a standard size.. but..). I do not think adding another one would help, but I would add lots of large water lettuce, which will give them some more cover.