Naughty Sparklers

[Shelster]

Well, I bought five sparklers back in January for my 54 litre and after enquiring on here found it was very hard to differentiate sex and to get around 10.

The lfs only had five so I reserved all five.

About a month later I only had three left - I'm thinking these are males as they each have their own territory in the tank.

Tank mates are neon green rasboras and CPD's

The Gouramis are such bullies, they chase everything! I am sure they are responsible for my other fishes decline.
This evening I just saw a NGR with a bloodied swollen eye and I'm sure I know the culprits

MBOU has since posted somewhere about sexing them but I can't find it now to post a link to so others can see how this is done before purchase.

The tank is heavily planted but this doesn't seem to be making a difference to their behaviour

They are a beautiful fish however my cpd's are down to two and NGR to 6/5!

I have decided to contact the lfs to see if they will take all these fish back and get a betta instead.

Just getting fed up of my fish being picked on the Gouramis are a beautiful fish and colour up lovely with blue eyes but too squabble for me I think *sigh*

 

[SmokedPaprika]

That's such a shame as they're beautiful little fish

any chance you could set them up in a species-only tank?
 
ETA - of course, getting a betta could only be a good thing...

 

[DrRob]

Personally I've always found the gourami family to be unreasonable souls. Less actively violent than cichlids can be but more generically vicious.
 
Might be that they'd be less trouble if there were more to spread the aggression into the group, but that may make things worse if you get the wrong mix again.

 

[Shelster]

That was what I was worried about Dr Rob.

It's a 54 litre, unsure on how many sparklers I could have in there and equally didnt want a tank of argumentative fish

I will be bagging them up today, and taking them to maidenhead.

Sounds silly, but you do get attached to fish (or I do anyway) but it will be better for them in the long run

 

[bigcheed]

Wow I was looking into getting some sparklers. I have dwarf and chocolate gouramis and although my dwarf is the boss there not nasty with each other. May have to re-consider.

 

[Shelster]

I would definately reconsider, I found them very quarrelsome.

 

[TekFish]

That's a shame. I love Sparklers.
 
Tek oot.