pics of my giant gourami in 10g

[alabaster]

just joking!

but seriously has anyone here ever kept these or had any experience with them? Absolutely beautiful fish, I've heard they eat any foods that people eat lol

Whats the minimum tank size? Thanks for replying!

 

[Gill]

Here's Some info
BIG

best Examples Here
Mongbay

 

[debiasir]

my LFS has one called baldrick in a huge custom made, planted tank, estimating the tank to be 20 times the size of my old rio 180. i mean i have only seen tanks this big in public aquariums he is keep with a huge commom plec. i am guess he is between 21 and 25 inch in length. there must be about 200 neons in the tank to, looks so nice.

 

[Ethos]

So a 55G wouldnt support a Giant Gourmi? I happen to love Gourmis and would love to own one of these...

 

[sylvia]

No way would I put one of these in a 55 gallon! I don't know what other people have tried but these fish get to 30" (and extremely quickly as well) - that's about 70cm, almost a metre! Even if they don't get to 30", most will get to at least 25" and that's still huge. Like it says in my signature, I would like to someday have some - hopefuly I can get myself a pair - but first, I want a 500 gallon to keep them in comfortably. You don't realy need that big a tank to keep one, but you would still need a tank that is wide enough to accomodate one and realy, it should be at least 90" long idealy so as to offer enough swimming space. But, again, you don't HAVE to offer that swimming space - I just think you should. So you might be able to accomodate a single one in a 200 gallon (at least for a while) but it would have to be wide enough and, IMO, it wouldn't be long enough. Height isn't that important - though, obviously, you don't want the fish dragging itself along the bottom!

 

[wrs]

actually, I read in some fish books, Handbook of tropical fishes, by TFH publications, the 1990 edition, that there is a fish called the giant gourami, which only reaches 5 inches. I think those are the ones walmart sells.

But I have also read about the one in the pic, and those are supposeidly highly agressive. I also read that a 10 foot tank was the best for the fish. I am not sure though as how many gallons, or other demnsions of the tank that the people kept theirs in, as they said it out grew a 6 foot tank.

 

[sylvia]

The 5" 'giant' gourami you are reffering to is colisa fasciata - also known as the banded, indian and striped gourami. It actualy doesn't usualy grow over 4" and is only called a 'giant' because it is the largest gourami in the colisa genus (dwarfs, honeys and thick-lipped gouramies are others). The true 'giant' gourami is the osphronemus sp. with about 4 species in the genus. They are aggressive while young but are quite peaceful as adults. A 10 foot tank sounds about right to keep more than one - the tank I was suggesting before would be about 8' and, with a width of about 30" would hold, I think, around 350 gallons (rough estimation). A 200 gallon, as I said before, probably wouldn't work as a permanent home for most individuals. I didn't comment before on the food thing It's true though that these fish will try to eat almost anything It isn't a good idea to feed them table scraps of course!

 

[OohFeeshy]

LOL, we don't need a kitchen Or a conservatory. Heck, lets knock down all the walls and have a massive school of giant gouramis Hehehe. Considering the largest tank I can consider (at the moment) is a 3fter.... well, lets just say methink I'm not getting a giant gourami

 

[-*-MicHAeL-*-]

that thing is massive and pretty impressive
nice to see a silver dollar in the background