Liquorice Gourami

[helterskelter]

I've found a shop with liquorice gourami (Parosphromenus deissneri), they got loads in stock.
Their stunning fish and i dont know much about them anyone had any experance with them?
I'm sure there a soft water but anyone tried them in hard water?

This is something I'll love to breed so I'll guess i'll have to look into doing soft water.

There is a shop in hereford, cant think of the name though.....

Never seen these in a shop befor and so want them!!!!!!

Helter

 

[nmonks]

These fish are broadly similar to chocolate gouramis in needs. They come from peaty, acidic (pH 6) waters with virtually no hardness, and like a lot of fishes from those habitats, have minimal resistance to opportunistic bacterial infections. So you need to build a very clean aqaurium, ideally without anything other than heater and filter, and decorate merely with floating plants. No gravel and no rooted plants! Make the tank as easy to clean as possible. Filtration best supplied with zeolite rather than biological media (filter bacteria don't really do well in soft and acidic water). On the plus side, if you use zeolite you won't need to mature the aquarium, and even a small tank plus a bubble-up box filter would suit a pair of these fish just fine.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[sylvia]

I'd have to disagree and say that they are not as difficult to keep as people say. It does depend on whether they've been wild caught or not but the best thing to do is to keep them in the same conditions as you find them at your LFS. Also, if the fish are wild caught they may require live foods - daphnia, brine shrimp and bloodworm works well. If you are lucky enough to get some that accept flake (or train them onto it), it's a good idea to feed them some that is algae-based or try feeding some veggies as well. Breeding and long-term health will usualy require softer water so it makes sense to set up an appropriate tank with softer/acidic water (about pH5-6 is normal - peat filtration helps) but you need to acclimatize extremely slowly (just like other gouramies - and even more so in this case - sudden changes in pH/hardness can kill). They also need to have very little, if any, current. Low light levels (or dense floating plants) and a dark substrate plus dark background help prevent the fish from becoming stressed. It helps if you have RO water readily available. Also, I'd personaly go for heavily planting the tank - not just with floating plants. Licorice gouramies (I know the spelling that way is incorrect but I've always seen the name spelled that way ) are not top-dwelling like some of the more common species and will get stressed in an open-water tank. They also don't use their labyrinth organ like other species do and rarely gulp air. They are, in fact, typicaly cave spawners - building a bubblenest in a small cave.
These are not as aggressive as chocolate gouramies and can be kept as a pair in a heavily planted 10 gallon.

 

[helterskelter]

Thanks, I dont have the space right now, but i know I'll not see these for a while though....

Helter