Advice Before Purchase

[UK_Dave]

I have 2 normal gourami's, 1 male (blue/grey colour) and 1 female (yellow), and interested in a dwarf 1 thats for sale, but before I do, I was wondering if a male dwarf would be ok with my normal 2

It would mean I have 2 males in the tank and need to know whether there would be a chance that they could fight, dont want any fish getting hurt over me not doing my research

thanks

 

[KittyKat]

General advice: never mix any two species of gourami and keep only one male.

What species is your normal gourami? What size and layout is the tank? Gouramis have a very high level of aggression toward other gouramis, of their own species or not.

 

[UK_Dave]

Now thats a good question! All I know is its not a dwarf

Well, if there is going to be that chance of a problem then I think I will give it a miss....Being a dwarf, he would probably end up as an easy target for the other 2

 

[KittyKat]

Maybe if you posted photos, we could ID? Or at least a description.. you are right, it is probably best to give it a pass this time..

 

[UK_Dave]

This looks like my male, but mine has more dark blue looking markings on his sides

And from looking at the pictures ive seen, my female is a honey

 

[KittyKat]

Your fish are Trichogaster trichopterus, colour morph "opaline gourami". Yes, they would beat the crap out of any dwarf gouramis you add, so that's a no-no to the new fish. The only option for more gouramis would be female opalines, but *only* if your tank is big enough.

 

[UK_Dave]

Well, I would be possibly interested in having another female

My tank is 4ft (80 or so gallon if I worked it out correctly)

 

[KittyKat]

Should be fine, provisionally.. is it planted? Got anything to break up the field of view from one end to the other?

 

[UK_Dave]

Its not got real plants in there, just decent quality fake ones, and they have to swim round most of it to get from one side to the other, rather than just swim in a straight line.

It also has other tasteful decorations in there, none of the cheap tacky looking bits that I would only use for a goldfish

Im still looking into real plants, as I need to get the right info on what i can and cant use with the fish I have.

 

[KittyKat]

Another female should be fine then Best to get one which is about the same size as your current two. Just a warning: there have been times when a pair would reject any new fish, but that tends to happen with older fish who have bred more then with young ones.

Do give me a shout when you decide on what plants to try out

 

[UK_Dave]

well i have only had these 2 for 2 weeks, bought them at the same time from the same shop.

As for plants, any that will be ok in with the community tank I have...I dont know much about them, or what substrate I need, I have stones on the base and dont really want to upset the chemical balance of the tank by changing that at the moment, it took me long enough to get NO2 and NO3 to acceptable levels!

The ammonia and pH were easy to sort but the others were giving me headaches!

 

[KittyKat]

Please tell me your have cycled your filter!

What did you do to get the nitrate sorted?

Ok, what are your water parameters? What sort of lighting have you got? Tank dimensions? (Yeah, all of these affect what plants you can have )

 

[UK_Dave]

Yeah its an established set up now, cant remember off the top of my head what the readings are at the moment, but I do know that the tank is all good and within the safe readings for all, its just the NO3 that im finding hard to get to 0 (but its as close as), but its within what is said to be "safe" according to the people I have spoken to

Its 1 of them tests that I do the mixing, then test it against the colour chart and work out if its correct or not and do as accordingly. I dont really take much notice to be able to say to someone its x amount

All tests are done by a liquid test kit, not the strips

Plus its been tested by the local, very well knowledgeable, shop near me to make sure I was correct and that I was reading it fine.

The good part is I have 0 ammonia...I think its the NO3 that I want to get lower, I get that and the NO2 mixed up at the moment, all I know is the test kit has 3 bottles I need to mix with the water.

Ive done many a water change % to get it lower, but for some reason I cant get it any lower than it is, hence why I believe that the water must be high in the chemical

The filter was not washed when I got the tank, only cleaned off in the water to remove the larger debris

As for lighting, that I am not sure of either, came with the set up and have only recently found that it can play a large part in plants, which is why I havent got any real ones at the moment. Want to make sure I get the rest right before I go for this, but the water is ok for the fish as I made sure before I bought anymore (only a couple of loaches) and the readings havent changed. I have been regularly testing it

Tank size, its about 70-80 gallons, 4ft in length, 2ft in height

 

[KittyKat]

It is almost impossible to get the NO[sub]3[/sub] down to 0, as long as it is under 25ppm, it's not even worth thinking about it.

For the lights, have a look at what it says on the tubes: there will normally be a little print on one side which will give the brand, colour and the wattage (**W) of the tubes. As I said, very nice size of tank.

 

[UK_Dave]

my no3 is about 10 now, done another test last night to check, ammonia is 0, no2 is non existant, and pH is about 75 so its all gone well!

Just had to seperate my gourami's as mentioned in another post

There is pictures up now of the tank too