Gourami Hates Plants...

[Grakk]

My ~4" gourami has recently decided it would be a good idea to attack my fledgling dwarf baby tears. What's his problem? I've been feeding him dried blood worms and small Spetrum Grow floating pellets a couple times a day thinking he might be hungry, but he just seems annoyed.

I set up this tank about 6 weeks ago with a prepared soil substrate topped with Flourite. It is cycled and stable.

Tank specs:

75gal planted tank, plenty of cover, 65Wx4 CF Odyssea, 1200LPH canister filter
1 annoyed gourami, 12 neon tetras, 4 rasboras, 4 otos, 2 glass catfish, various ghost shrimp and nerite snails
pH controlled CO2 injection (~11ppm)
pH=7.2
KH=6
GH=8
NH3,NO2=0ppm
NO3=15ppm

I had a recent green water bloom due to some high phosphates which I have since gotten under control with a UV sterilizer (yes, I will be taking that hideous apparatus out once it's cleared up) a ~40% water change, and 2 day black out. I have since switched to better food (Spectrum). He seems to have started becoming annoyed at the plants when the algae bloom started and has continued to harass them even after it subsided. He only appears to harass the dwarf baby tears.

I have had this gourami for probably 7 years and he seems otherwise healthy and gets along fine with his tankmates. I transplanted him from another 30 gal planted hex tank where he never showed this behavior (although I had no dwarf baby tears in there either...) Would be a shame to get rid of him if I don't have to...

The tank:

The culprit:

The carnage:

 

[Grakk]

On second thought, Gourami LOVES plants. I read some other threads and decided to add some vegetables. A strip of nori I dipped in the water was ravenously attacked and devoured. Apparently my fish understand a balanced diet better than their owner. Hopefully he will stop bugging my plants now.

 

[Goodygumdrops]

Your baby tears I'm afraid is a gourami favourite!Mine love it too.Strange though,they eventually leave it alone and I don't know wether it's just nosiness or what,but when I first planted it,they were at it all the time,and it was always getting uprooted,couple of months down the line and no probs.(Thik the roots are more established now so this could also be a problem,if it's a bit loose,it'll just come up,gouramis like to pick at everything!).

Forgot to add,totally agree with you on the nori issue,I regularly feed mine algae wafers and they really love them.

 

[shelaghfishface]

no idea on the plant chewing gourami, but i think your tank is beautiful

 

[Grakk]

Thanks shelagh! I hope it will look better once my ground cover and a few chunks of riccia get a chance to fill in completely.

By the way, when you all plant HC Cuba, do you remove them completely from the potting fiber? When I started to do this (like I did with my normal HC) I found the plant stems just too delicate to pick apart and so I just cut off the bottom half of the potting medium and shoved them in. But I'm wondering if I could have gotten a more robust start on the rooting process if I had actually gone to the trouble. I have a soil substrate so I can always tell when the plants worm their way down. They explode with large new growth. Hasn't happened yet with my HC Cuba and I hope they can survive a nosy gourami for a bit longer...