Guppies All Male? + Pale Gourami?

[Plecc]

Hi all,

I'm thinking of getting 6-8 guppies for my community tank,
I have had live bearers before, as they reproduce so fast i have often found them more trouble than their worth.

I was chatting to a guy at my LFS, he mentioned that guppies are fine in single sex groups,(e.g 8 males and no females)

Personally I'm a bit skeptical, does this work?
Or do they just fight for hierarchy within the group, as there's no females to chase?

If anyone can recommend any other small fish that have strong schooling characteristics please do so.(no neon tetra plz)

Also: over the last few days i have noticed my two gourami are beginning to look quite pale, i feed good food so they have always been very vibrant.
There behavior hasn't changed, they just look really washed out, the spots on my three spot gourami are always a dark black, but at the moment their almost invisible and my golden gourami looks even paler.

Any ideas what could be up with them?

Plecc.

 

[ellena]

I would say the guppies would be OK, based on the fact I have 8 male endlers and they're fine. I would recommend them as another shoaling fish actually. Or the guppy/endler hybrids. I have some yellow ones which I have seen sold as Venus guppies. They're a little bigger than endlers and so colourful. Really outgoing active little fish.

 

[Plecc]

Thanks,

I like the look of the standard endlers, possibly a better option for me than the fancy tail guppies, as i have some very cheeky zebra loach's that can be a bit nippy especially during feeding.(although all my smaller fish are much faster)

Any idea on the pale Gourami?

 

[Tiswas]

I've only had one rather smal dismal failure of a forray into guppies.But to cut a long story short and keep to the point I started off with 3 males and they certainly did seem to get happier when I added more males to the group. But like I said I've only had guppies once so there are probably far more experienced people out there than me

 

[Paradise3]

I've had a group of all male guppies probably had about 10 together before and no problem. They did start chasing each other at first but they calmed down.

Xxx~misscosmo~xxX

 

[Harlequins]

Regarding your pale gouramis,have you tested water stats lately?

 

[Gilli]

I have never had any sucess with guppies - they usually die for no reason and I am an experienced fishkeeper with a mature tank water params all good. Ive only ever had 2 survive and they lived for a year then again faded away for no reason. It seems that they have been bred so much that the strain is now very weak. Also I found keeping all males they just constantly harrassed each other for sex!

Gouramis are among the fish most likely to contract bacterial infections if water quality or water chemistry isn’t exactly right. The symptoms are bloody sores on the body,loss of appetite, bloating and short of veterinarian help (i.e., antibiotics )nothing much seems to help. Even with antibiotics, the prognosis isn’t particularly good, and even starting off with healthy fish might not help as some aquarists believe that virtually all commercially-bred gouramis carry the bacteria. So the issue isn’t keeping the bacteria out of the tank but making sure it doesn’t become a problem which is virtually impossible.

I had a honey gourami which I adored called Mr Banana (as he loved them) he would feed from my hand and was such a character. I had him for just over a year then he suddenly like yours became pale, went off his food then bloated up and in the end I had to put him to sleep despite trying every med going. I was gutted and id never buy one again no matter how beautiful they are.