Im new to gouramis and was wondering something

[Danno]

I have small area in my room to hold one 5 gallon tank and was wondering if this is enough room for a male and female gouriamis. I was also wondering if they need a airator (laybrinth but i dunno) and how fast should the gph on the filter be? and what kind of gouriamis are the most active a pretty to own ( )

 

[sylvia]

With a 5 gallon you are rather limmited. You could either go for a single dwarf (colisa lalia) gourami or a single honey gourami. You could also keep a trio (1 male, 2 females) of honey gouramies (colisa sota/chuna) if you provide enough cover. Keeping just a male and female isn't a good idea as the male will chase the female and will stress her. Dwarf gourami males are beautiful but larger and more prone to illness and a little more territorial than honeys. Make sure when buying your gourami(es) that you check the scientific name as the common names get muddled up and many different species are given the same commercial name.

You can tell the sex of your gouramies like this:

For dwarfs it's very easy as the male is much more brightly colored while the female is silvery (and becoming difficult to find as LFS seem to only stock males) with a deeper body, wider belly and shorter finnage. There are many color morphs.

Honeys can be slightly trickier. At an LFS the sexes can seem identical but the females are generaly lighter grey-brown to pale yellow in color with a rounded dorsal fin compared to the male's slimmer appearance, longer, pointier dorsal and richer yellow-gold to red coloration. When in good, breeding condition, the males develop a wonderful blue-black underside to contrast with a deep orange-flame colored background.

For a small tank with just gouramies you could use pretty much any filter sold as suitable for that size tank. I actualy preffer small sponge filters meant for use on 10-20 gallon tanks and you don't need an airstone though it would be useful as, though they mainly breathe air, they do appreciate well-oxygenated water (as does any fish).

You should fishless cycle the tank (read link in signature) and provide plenty of hiding places including some floating cover. If the floating cover used is live plants, make sure they don't ever completely cover the surface and obstruct the gouramies' path to the air as they will suffocate. The substrate doesn't matter but a dark substrate will bring out color. They preffer dim to medium-bright lighting but won't mind provided they have cover to escape strong light and regular day/night cycles. A hood is essential as they can jump and need realtively warm air above the water to breath as the cold air outside would likely shock and stress them.

They will show best color when fed a commercial flake supplemented with plenty of live/frozen foods such as bloodworms and brine shrimp. Freeze-dried foods like bloodworms, tubifex, brine shrimp, daphnia etc and fresh foods like cucumber and zuxhinni can also be offered. An occasional shelled pea does them good as well.

 

[Gill]

You Could Go far some Sparkling Gourami or Liqourice Gourami, Croakers Get a Little Bigger but make lovely Froggy Sounds.

Max Size 3-5 Cm.

 

[Danno]

Well Dwarfs would be good. 2 Of them is ok in a heavily planted tank right? Is thier any tank buddies avalible for them? and is betta food ok for them too?

 

[sylvia]

You could try 2 dwarfs but they are likely to fight. As, I said before, a trio of honeys would be much better. Heavily planting the tank will reduce aggression but a 5 gallon won't offer much territory space for the rather territorial male dwarfs.

In other words, either go for a single dwarf or be prepaired to remove one or, my preffered option, don't go for the rather sickly dwarfs at all. Obviously feel free to try it but be aware of their character and make sure you add both at the same time and that there are enough hiding places and floating plants to make it less tempting to them to start fighting or annoying each other.

Betta food would do but should be supplemented with frozen/live foods for optimum health.

Good tank mates for a small tank with dwarfs OR honeys would be a couple of otos though they are fragile and will need live algae to thrive or a couple of male platies or a couple of male guppies. Make sure that if you get livebearers you only get males as females may already be pregnant and obviously mixing sexes will result in fry - in both cases you'll end up severaly over-stocked. You could also try 3-4 pygmy/dwarf corydoras if you decide to go for a single dwarf or honey as there should be enough space for them.

A note on the other options mentioned- sparkling gouramies are a possible option as well. However, they like company so keep this in mind if you go for them. They are also somehwat more difficult to find which is why I didn't mention them though they would be great in a planted tank.

I wouldn't go for licorice gouramies though. For a start they need well-oxygenated water and stable water parameters and are more fragile than the others mentioned. They also do not breathe atmospheric air and don't spend as much time near the surface and are much rarer to come accross IME.

 

[Danno]

What if I could kick the gallonage up to 6 or 8 or 10 gallons? I have a limited space so that would be my problem.

 

[sylvia]

If you kicked it up to say 8 gallons (actualy the gallonage doesn't matter as much in this case - it's the surface area) then you could keep 2 male dwarfs quite easily.

Actualy if you could buy a 5-6 gallon that is low and long you could still keep the two dwarfs as they'd have more territory space due to the larger area of surface for them.

In the same way, if you bought a tall hexagonal 8 gallon, you could only keep 1 male anyway.

 

[Danno]

I have hieght room. Just not width room

 

[sylvia]

That's too bad. You'll have to settle for a single dwarf and a couple of guppies or something then. Or maybe the honeys instead. Good luck with whatever you choose

 

[Danno]

Ok iv'e made a chart to show you my actual space to work with.

 

[sylvia]

Hmm... I suppose you'll just have to go for the largest possible tank and get one that is a little taller to add gallonage. I don't know what else to suggest
If you can find a tank that's larger than 5 gallons you may be able to fit the 2 dwarfs you want but I can see how space is a limiting factor. Look for the LONGEST tank possible.

You can maybe get one that's 18l x 5w for example (if you get one custom made you certainly can). And then you could keep 2 dwarfs easily.

Maybe consider 2 females? They're not quite as colorful but they have lovely subtle colors against a silvery background and I actualy think some of them are more beutful than the males...

What about getting two 3 gallon tanks? Then you could get 2 dwarfs and keep both tanks on that space but not have them fight. However, you won't be able to keep anything else with them because the volume would be much too small and they'll need all the space they can get. An added advantage would be that you can then play with the decor on the seperate tanks BUT you'd need 2 small filters (sponge would work and are cheap) and 2 small heaters and the 2 smaller tanks would probably cost more than buying a larger 8 gallon for example.

Do consider just getting the one dwarf for a 5 gallon. Platies, guppies, otos, mosquito fish and endler's livebearers can all make good tank-mates so do research these fish and see if maybe you'd like one of those to go with the dwarf in a 5 gallon and get another dwarf once you have a larger tank.