Gourami = fin-nippers :(

[Helium_Junkie]

My two gold gourami have been nipping fins, both my polkadot molly and my beautiful dalmation Guppy have slices missing from their tails...
Is there any reason that the Gourami do this? Can the behaviour be prevented? Shall I take em back?

 

[Fawke]

I have gouramis, and had one blue male that was very aggresive

peolple on here made suggestions like more plants, moving the decor around to disturb his teritories and even removing him for a time, then re-introducing him. however nothing worked and he had to go back.

now we have the same problem but not to the same extent, just chasing. we plan to get more gouramis to take the pressure off our other one and hopefully stop her being so dominant.

our gouramis were only bullies to other gouramis. my advice would be to return them if they are causing damage to your other fish

 

[Helium_Junkie]

I think that these are 2 males. Would a female to play with calm them down?

How do you tell male from female?

 

[Never2Bknown]

I have no idea how to sex gouramis, and I'm not sure that putting a female in there would calm them down. Most gouramis, I think, can be somewhat nippy... when I was really young, my mother once had a blue gourami that she was constantly separating and putting back, etc. and it always stayed mean. I think it mysteriously disappeared one day... my guess is that it might have had something to do with her notorious habit of flushing live fish down the toilet That was a long time ago, though, so I'm not entirely sure.
Dwarf gouramis, however, are, as far as I know, peaceful fish rather than fin-nippers. Not sure how to remedy yours, though... just don't pull a "mom" and flush them down the toilet...

 

[Fawke]

I have had 1 male and 1 female be aggresive, so not sure there is much difference in tempriment

a male has a much more pointed dorsal fin, often longer than the female and with a defined point. a females fin is rounded

HTH

just checked out my fish pics, they are not very clear but the top right shows a female blue gourami, the pic underneath shows a yellow male. he is hiding in the plant but you can just about see the pointy fin to compare them. use the link in my sig, then go to fish pics at the top

 

[clutterydrawer]

I think they're just generally stroppy fish. there was a thread on here wuite recently about someone;s blue gourami which quite suddenly flipped out and started attacking everything in the tank.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi Helium_Junkie

Gouramis are territorial and sometimes tend to be aggressive toward other fish. You can try putting a few tall plants in your tank, which will provide hiding places for the other fish, but that's about all you can really do.

The gold gouramis are color variations of the Trichogaster trichopterus aka, the blue three spot gourami and are every bit as temperamental. Your tank is not too small to house the two of them comfortably if they were inclined to be peaceful. Usually, they are most aggressive toward each other, but sometimes they do hurt other fish.

Adding a female will only give them another target for their aggression, it will not change their attitude.

 

[Tednol]

i have three females and two males, my females sometimes have a go at each other becasue they hang around at the suface whereas the males stay at the bottom away from it all (dont blame them) but as soon as they come up its all peaceful. soon i shall be purchasing another male and that should solve most of it

 

[Helium_Junkie]

Unfortunately the Gouramis have attacked more fish, two of my Guppies. They have gone back to the shop

 

[Fawke]

Sorry to hear that Helium_Junkie

Gouramis are hit and miss when it comes to their temper. Unfortunately this seems to be quite a common problem with them (aggression) and i have found little that will calm them down othe than a tank move....

My Gourmais were fine in my QT tank but the male (mentioned earlier) went ballistic in my larger tank (with tonnes more decor!).....

Anyonw with any resolutions id love to hear them - How to calm a stroppy Gourami - iv tried everthing i can think of!

Sorry again Helium
At least you have some room for some more fishies!!!