So far, so good...

[Madame_X]

Well, I moved my timid, picked-on dwarf gourami into the bigger tank about an hour ago.

It was really rough getting him out of my Eclipse! I had to remove several decorations (much to the dismay of my upside down catfish) to chase him around. All the fish were freaked out and to make matters worse, there is a brace in the center of the tank that runs from front to back which makes it extremely tough to get from one side to the other. So the poor little guy was extremely stressed out by the time I was able to net him and put him in a bag.

I acclimated him over about 40 minutes as the PH in my 30 gallon is lower than my 12 (to keep my rams happy). Well, within about 5-10 minutes he was already swimming around in the bag more than he ever would in the other tank. He pretty much stayed in the corner and never moved except to get a few morsels of food. Aside from that, the other gourami never let him out of that corner.

When I released him into the tank, he immediately started swimming around and picking at the plants (hope he doesn't eat them!). The rams are not picking on him when he goes into their territory, and in fact, they almost seem afraid of him! Right now they're all kinda swimming around checking each other out.

He doesn't seem stressed out at all anymore. If anything, he's happy to be able to move without being attacked.

It seems to be going well.

 

[Allivymar]

LOL I'm taking bets on how soon he builds a bubble nest

I say within a week *grin*

 

[Terry]

It is so nice to here that something has gone to plan , he sounds so much happier in your 30g, I agree with allivymar he will probably start to build a nest now.
Let us know how he gets on.

 

[Guest]

Bubbles Bubbles Bubbles.... It has been years since I have kept Gourami's...Forgot all about the bubble nests

 

[Madame_X]

Well no bubble nests yet, but this is a completely different fish than he was in the smaller tank. He swims all around the tank, up, down, side to side, behind the filter, around the spray bar (he gets launched when he does that but I think he's learning!). He only stops swimming around at night shortly before the lights go off when he finds his hiding spot for the night.

One of the rams will chase him out of his territory if he goes to to the lower part of the tank, but he doesn't seem to be affected by the chasing. He just moves on and goes about his business. The other ram who "owns" the front of the tank doesn't seem to mind his presence at all.

Oddly enough, the more aggressive gourami seems to have gone into hiding in my smaller tank now. What's up with that?? He has been nowhere near as visible as usual since I removed the other one. I checked the water parameters to make sure I didn't stir something up when I was chasing the gourami but they're all fine.

I'm still trying to figure out the fishy behaviors.