Gourami Hiding In Gravel?

[rainydayz]

I have two Gioramis, one big orange and one smaller blue. My orange gourami like to chase the blue one sometimes so the blue has a place he likes to hide, it is in the corner of the tank by a plant. Now the blue one has dug himself a hole and is sort of laying in the gravel. It is eating and doing all the normal things I just thought it was strange!! Any suggestions?

 

[Fish Guy]

Gouramis can be pretty aggressive and territorial. Some options that you could try is take out both fish, then rearrange your tank decor then introduce them at the same time. I just siphon some water from the tank into a clean bucket,put the fish in there, change the tank decor around and pour the water and fish back in. Or another option you could try is adding more gouramis to help spread out aggression. But this depends on the size of your tank, which is?

 

[rainydayz]

My tank is a 40 gallon. I have recently rearranged my tank thinking it would help but apparently not.

 

[Fish Guy]

Well if the larger Gold Gouramis is still very aggressive, I would add more gouramis or dither fish like danios etc.. or bring back the gold one and get a few gouramis of the same size and type.

 

[rainydayz]

Thank you!

 

[primagen]

sounds like the gold one might be a male, as males are usually more aggressive than females. ideally, you would have only 1 male in the tank with a few other females. this is because males fight with each other. more females distributes the male's aggression among them. male gold/blue gouramis have pointed dorsal fins, females have rounded ones and rounder bellies.