Dwarf croaking gourami

[Tetramad]

I saw a tiny unidentified Gourami at my LFS, it was on its own in a tank and dead cute so I brought it home. It turns out to be a dwarf croaking gourami. Has any body else had expirience with these fish? how big do they grow?its about an inch at the moment.
It seems to be doing very well in my community tank and has started a strange freindship with my pair of peacock gobies, it follows them round all over the tank.

Mark.

 

[Katchan]

Try here


http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=35158


Katchan

 

[VickiPS]

Try here

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=35158

The article this url points to confuses two distinct species, Trichopsis vittata (or vittatus), the Croaking Gourami, and T. pumila/pumilus, the Sparkling Gourami, also known as the Dwarf Croaking Gourami.

The picture shown in the article is of T. pumilus, but the article heading identifies the species as T. vittata.

Mark's question sounds like it refers to T. pumilus. The species are fairly similar in general requirements, breeding etc., but they would be impossible to confuse by their appearance. T. vittatus is considerably larger, lacks the dark "checkers" on the upper body and the sparkling scales, and has distinctive elongated central rays on the caudal. The rest of the information in the article is, however, valid for T. pumilus.

One note -- while they are generally an okay community fish, and usually fairly reclusive, T. pumilus can be quite aggressive when defending territory or a nest. Despite their small size (around 2" max.) they will stand up to larger fish threatening their territory, and may occasionally injure or kill an intruder.