Pearl Gourami Questions

[confusion]

I bought a male and female pearl gourami and added them to my 55G community tank last night. They've been exhibiting behavior that I've not seen in fish before - first, they are very attached to each other. They pretty much do not leave each others side. The male seems to be much more attached to the female than the reverse, but she doesn't seem to mind. Are pearl gouramis normally that affectionate? It almost seems like what I've heard a mating pair of angels will do.

BTW, they are beautiful fish. I also have a fire dwarf gourami, and 2 (very) small honey gold gouramis. The honey's seem to do their own thing, but I've noticed that the two pearls and the dwarf "hang out" together quite a bit. No aggression, just swimming side by side, and hovering at the bottom together.

 

[SugarQube]

I also have 2 gouramis but they go round like bumper cars all the time maybe my 2 don't like each

 

[Opilius]

It seems your pearls have paired meaning they are mates (not australian) and as for being kind to the dwarf they can be very passive or aggresive depending on their environment.

Opilius

 

[confusion]

my dwarf gourami died of dropsy 2 days ago. I think he may have been sick when hanging out with the pearls.

 

[sylvia]

Dwarf gouramies often carry disease and its not unusual for them to die suddenly. The pearls would not have had anything to do with it but do keep an eye out to make shure tey don^t start displaying symptoms.

Pearl gouramies are rather social by gourami standards. In larger groups they display what can only be described as schooling behaviour. A pair won't usualy remain this peaceful though. Eventualy the male will start chasing the female around a little more than shê'd like and this can be stressful for her. Adding a couple more simialrly-sized females solves this issue. Luckily, you only rarely get real aggression from pearl gouramies - whereas most other species can get quite nasty with each other.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Would just one be okay? Because I'm pushing the limits a little on the amount of fish... I'm planning to get 3 more phantoms, and that should pretty much be all the tank space in a 29 gallon, rihgt? Currently I have

6 2' Silver Tip Tetras
7 Neon Tetras
and 5 Phantom Tetras

Would it eat all of those?

 

[sylvia]

A single male pearl would do fine with those.