My KH is 9 and my GH is 17. Is this too high for dwarf gourami?

[Irksome]

I have just revamped my tanks, two 10 gallons and a 6 gallon. They were overgrown with plants and snails, but now they are sorted I am looking into stocking ideas. With these water parameters I know my options are limited. Have any of you managed to make a dwarf gouramis tank a success in such hard water?
Thanks

 

[AlexT]

I have just revamped my tanks, two 10 gallons and a 6 gallon. They were overgrown with plants and snails, but now they are sorted I am looking into stocking ideas. With these water parameters I know my options are limited. Have any of you managed to make a dwarf gouramis tank a success in such hard water?
Thanks

Hi, others that know more than me about this fish will answer. In the meantime, a website that quite a few on here seem to trust is seriously fish and this is the link for dwarf gouramis https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/trichogaster-lalius you will see the recommended hardness (and they will be talking about GH) is 2-18 degrees. Your 17 sits within that range, but ideally you would not want to sit right on the edge of that range, that's the problem. The fish could live at 17 GH but might not thrive and be at it's best. Let's see what others day. I don't think the KH is too critical here, but let's see.

You have almost exactly the same KH and GH as me (out of the tap anyway).

 

[Colin_T]

All gouramis and Bettas will struggle in hard water. They do best in soft water with a GH below 150ppm (8 dGH).

Avoid dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) and all their colour forms because they are regularly infected with the Gourami Iridovirus and or Fish Tuberculosis (TB). There is no cure for either disease and once they are in your tanks, they are there until you disinfect everything, including your other fish.

 

[Irksome]

All gouramis and Bettas will struggle in hard water. They do best in soft water with a GH below 150ppm (8 dGH).

Avoid dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) and all their colour forms because they are regularly infected with the Gourami Iridovirus and or Fish Tuberculosis (TB). There is no cure for either disease and once they are in your tanks, they are there until you disinfect everything, including your other fish.

Thankyou. I’m sad to hear the iridovirus is still such a problem, I was hoping some headway would have been made developing resistant strains by now. I’ll look into getting some really nice guppies instead. One day I will get gouramis and Bettas again but I’m going wait until I have a reverse osmosis machine for them.

 

[Colin_T]

The Iridovirus will be around forever. It's like people trying to stop covid19 from spreading when nobody is isolating and the virus is just doing its own thing. The Gourami iridovirus comes from tropical Asia and will keep coming from there until the farms that have the virus are cleaned and they get new stock. But that won't happen because Mr Joe Fish Farmer won't kill thousands of dollars worth of fish and spend thousands more cleaning everything. He will just keep sending infected stuff out.

After the fish farms have been cleaned, the importers, wholesalers and retail pet shops will also have to disinfect everything and that won't happen either. Then if a customer returns some fish that carry the virus, it will reinfect the shop.

The Gourami Iridovirus has been let out of the bottle and it isn't going back in.

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Guppies from fish farms are regularly infected with intestinal worms, gill flukes and external protozoa. It's a good idea to deworm these fish before adding them to an aquarium containing healthy fish. Section 3 of the following link has info on deworming fish.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Irksome]

The Iridovirus will be around forever. It's like people trying to stop covid19 from spreading when nobody is isolating and the virus is just doing its own thing. The Gourami iridovirus comes from tropical Asia and will keep coming from there until the farms that have the virus are cleaned and they get new stock. But that won't happen because Mr Joe Fish Farmer won't kill thousands of dollars worth of fish and spend thousands more cleaning everything. He will just keep sending infected stuff out.

After the fish farms have been cleaned, the importers, wholesalers and retail pet shops will also have to disinfect everything and that won't happen either. Then if a customer returns some fish that carry the virus, it will reinfect the shop.

The Gourami Iridovirus has been let out of the bottle and it isn't going back in.

-------------------

Guppies from fish farms are regularly infected with intestinal worms, gill flukes and external protozoa. It's a good idea to deworm these fish before adding them to an aquarium containing healthy fish. Section 3 of the following link has info on deworming fish.

What to do if your fish has Stringy White Poop.

Fish do a stringy white poop for several reasons. 1) Internal Bacterial Infections causes the fish to stop eating, swell up like a balloon, breath heavily at the surface or near a filter outlet, do stringy white poop, and die within 24-48 hours of showing these symptoms. This cannot normally be...

www.fishforums.net

I had hoped people would be experimenting with breeding wild stock into the population to relieve the inbreeding depression, or playing with hybrid vigor with similar species to make the gouramis stronger and less likely to die. It must be very much cheaper to just keep selling poorly fish.

Rather than buying farmed guppies I am looking for hobby aquarists that sell off excess fry or breeding pairs. I’ve bought them from shops before and had many problems with them. I’ve had strains from hobby keepers that haven’t had any issues at all. I will still be on the lookout for signs of illness and won’t be mixing any old or new stock for some time.

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello. The tanks are really too small for keeping fish healthy. Plants are fine, because they're much more likely to live in water conditions that are subject to sudden changes. Fish aren't likely to survive in such conditions. I don't believe you can keep the water conditions suitable for any fish in such a small amount of water. You should give yourself every chance to succeed and that means keeping a much larger tank. 30 gallons would really be the minimum.

10 Tanks (Now 11)