Three Spot question...

[FishNoob]

Sunday I removed one of my 2 gourami's (female) from my tank and put her in another tank. The one that stayed in the original tank (male) is hanging around the top of the tank alot lately breathing in air. More so today than usual, so i was wondering could this be from the water conditions, or possibly from the seperation? He was picking on her and has her fins all frayed. Tank has been set-up for 4 weeks, fish in tank for 3 weeks. The water has the following parameters:

Temp: 78
pH: 7.2
KH: 120
GH: 150
Nitrite: was 3.0 before water change, .5 after
Nitrate: 0
Ammonia: .5

Thanks,
Ed

And yes, I know the 5 gallon is too small for a Blue Gourami.

 

[Mesome]

Hi Ed!
I had the same problem when I was setting up my tank. I started with the 2 pearls and the Opaline, which is the same as the blue and gold, just different colors...
The opaline was really being mean to the others, so I added 3 neon dwarf rainbows. Seemed to call him down a bit, so I added the gold gourami and 3 more neon dwarf rainbows, and then the corys. He is fine now. There are enough other gouramis to keep him busy. He chases them around once in a while, but not bad. They say that if you have only 2 gouramis, then the weaker one will get picked on. Make sure that you get then close to the same size as each other too.
Good luck!
-Erin