New Gourami

[LemurLad]

I was at the LFS today with my little brother, helping him pick out fish for his 10 gal since I had taken the white clouds and danios for the paludarium from there, and I spied this group of unlabeled gourami looking things. The store folks told me they just got em about an hour ago as "Spiketail paradisefish." I snagged one because I'm a sucker for mysterious gourami lookin' things and put it in the palu. After a bit of research, it looks like I've got a Pseudospheromenus cupanus, which is perfect for the temperature that this palu is at. Might have to grab them a buddy or two, it looks a bit lonely amongst the schooling fish. I bet it's a juvenile since it's not too colored up yet, we'll see how he/she develops.

My little brother ended up with a school of 5 Glowlight tetras and 2 sparkling gouramis, a good start to a small community, I'd say.

 

[Trout11B]

Are the sparkling gouramis the ones with blue eyes?

 

[LemurLad]

Mhm. They're great little fish, only get about 1.5" and have fun personalities so long as there aren't any bully fish around. They also make croaking sounds sometimes at night, heheh.

 

[Coleallensmom]

Cool fish!

 

[mudraker]

Croaking fish, I like it.

 

[dkpate]

Neat!!! I just decided I like sparkling gouramis! LOL

Congrats on your new guy too.

 

[LemurLad]

Sparkling gourami's are neat aren't they? I felt sorry for my poor lonely spiketail so I went back to the LFS and picked him up a couple of buddies. They're just as drab, haha, but I like 'em! They seem to like to sit under the power head, the tank is unheated(it's at about 68-70F), are they trying to warm up from the little heat that comes from the power head or are they just getting out of the current? These guys have essentially the same care as paradise fish, this caresheet was all the info I could find on them, and it says 18-24C (64-75F), so they should be just fine... Meh, I dunno.

 

[LemurLad]

Well, seems that the spiketails definitely prefer warmer water. I hadn't seen them since I got them, so yesterday I figured I'd poke around and make sure they were still alive. They were really lethargic and huddled together behind some driftwood so I took them out and acclimated them to my much warmer 10gal. All three move around the tank and definitely seem to be much happier.