agressive dwarf gouramis

[Rayne]

I have a 55 gal tank with 2 dwarf gouramis (1 blue , 1 red) i also have 2 guppies and 2 angels in the tank.
The red gouramis picks on the blue one alot lately. but the blue one gives as good as he gets but i am worried that he will get really hurt. he already has a rip in his tail. I was wondering if the red one will mellow if there are more fish in the tank to distract him.

my LFS is not very forgiving and will not take him back and i have no one to give him to. i really don't know what to do!!!

 

[lsmall]

Dwarf males can be very aggressive toward each other, yet very docile with other fish including other types of gouramis (i.e. opalines, pearl, 3-spot). Although other types of gouramis are aggressive toward the dwarves.

Anyway, you've got a relatively big tank, so there should be a lot of space for them to make their own territories.
Some strategies are lots of plants, and other decorations for hiding places. Make shift rock caves or driftwood are good.
Another thing you may try, is putting the more aggresive one in a floating isolation tank. This will allow the less aggressive one to pick a territory and may defend it more when the more aggressive one is released. I often keep a more aggressive gourami in an isolation tank when I'm not around and release it for a few hours when I can monitor the fish. If they become aggressive, I physically break them up with a net or something. Eventually they get conditioned.

In my experinence gourami aggression ends in one of two ways. They eventually quiet down or one dies.

Good Luck,
LSmall

 

[Doggfather]

As Lsmall mentioned, your tank is large enough to accomodate 2 dwarf gourami. How long have you had them? It's common for 2 reletivly new gourami to show aggresion while working out territories, learning their way around the tank, etc.

One possibility to stop the aggresion is to move around all the decorations in your tank so territories are broken up and new ones can be formed.

Hope you can update us on the problem soon

 

[Rayne]

I've had them a little over a month. I've recently bought a new clay pot and boiled it to steralize it I hope the little blue one can claim it as his own and have his own territory so the red one will leave him aloone

 

[Rayne]

solved the problem i hope. I brought the red dwarf back to the LFS for store credit. I was getting dangerously close to killing my blue one.