Mr Nasty Blue Gourami

[jayB]

Hi can anyone help or suggest any ideas

We have had a Male Blue Gourami for about 3 - 4 years now and are having trouble with his aggression towards other gouramis in our tank (both blue and golden).

To date he has already seen off two of his mates and is at the moment attemping to harrass a smalle golden gourami. (male I think ??)

He has grown to 3.5" and would seem to own the tank.

The only other fish that seems to worry/scare him is one of the shoal of neon tetras that takes non of his attitude !

The tank is 6` x 1.5` x 1.5` which we thought would be plenty big enough for him to tolerate sharing but it would seem not ?

Any ideas / suggestions (short of trading him in at the local pet store) ??

Many thanks

 

[Morrgan]

Blue gouramis are big and quite aggressive fish. I'm not too surprised to hear that a tank even that size is not enough for several of them. From my experience with blue and three-spot gouramis I'd say that one male wants a territory of about 50-60 gal.

I think you'd be better off with just one male and several females in your tank. If you really don't want to take any of them back, I suggest you plant the tank very densely and arrange the decorations so that the male gouramis can each have a territory where they don't see each other.

 

[jayB]

Thanks for the Tip !

We will give it a go and try to provide some kind of planting / chill out area that the other male could call his own territory.

I hope we have some luck or we may have to resort to looking to return him to the pet store as he seems to take a dislike to the other females also ?

I guess we could just have a problem male with a chip on his shoulder ?

As far as I can tell, we have him , one other male (golden) and three female (1 Blue/2 Golden).

Watch this space !!!!!!!!

Regards

JB

 

[Morrgan]

Good luck, I hope the rearranging works.

It's not unusual for the males to be aggressive towards females too, except for when they are breeding. Some blue gouramis are just more aggressive than others. It's good that you have several females, since this way the aggression will be spread out over several ones.