Can't we all just get along?

[deli_conker]

My africans outgrew my tank I suppose. Too much fighting. I don't have a problem with the occasional act of aggression, but the past week they have just gone absolutely crazy. Spinning around each other, chasing each other through every hiding place in the tank (I had plenty of them too). Two days ago there were several "face locks" and yesterday a couple were missing scales.

The scales were the final straw. I turned out the lights and covered the tank before work. When I got home I got them all out and kicked them to the curb. My LFS was more than happy to give them a home amongst others of their kind. I don't think I'm going to do africans again until I get a 220 gal that I am planning for in the future.

But on the bright side, I now have an empty 55 gal. I cleaned and filled it last night. The filter has plenty of bacteria in it and I'm going to keep it going with a little bit of raw shrimp while I get the rest of the tank put together. This time I'm going to do a community tank. Originally my 30 gal was going to be one, but now I think the 55 will have to do...

Here's the tentative list...

8-12 cardinal tetras
8-12 red phantom tetras
8-12 gold white cloud mountain minnows
2-3 powder blue dwarf gouramis
6-10 corys (not sure of type yet)

Any ideas or comments on the above are certainly welcome...

 

[Menagerie]

I'm sorry to hear that the Africans had to go. Sounds like the males were feeling their "oats"!

The list looks okay to me. Just watch those gouramis with each other. Are phantom tetras nippers?

 

[deli_conker]

According to the LFS guy, they should be okay. I asked about putting my 2 guppies in with the above and he said to keep an eye out for anything, but most likely they'd be okay.

I thought that gouramis needed to be in groups of 2 or three for social reasons. Are you thinking they may attack each other?

 

[joekoug]

Try and get all female Gouramis. Or 2 females and a male. 2 males and a female or 3 males and they might be aggressive towards eachother.

HTH
Joe

 

[shawmutt]

I would add hatchets, they fill out the top portion of the tank.

 

[Menagerie]

I'm not a big gourami person, but I know they can get nasty with each other.

 

[madasafish]

Menagerie is absolutely right. It's very hard to find female dwarf gouramis, so if you get 2-3, you'll prob have all males. And the males of the species are NASTY to each other. I had one attack another mercilessly. It eventually killed the other one. Never have more than one male in a tank. Not sure if this can be avoided if there are a lot of females in the tank, though...

 

[deli_conker]

There's a tank of gouramis at my LFS. If the lfs guy was right about how to sex them, them there are plenty of females around in my neck of the woods.

He said to look at the dorsal fin, if it comes to a point then it is a male, if it rounds off instead, then it's a female. If that's correct, then I can as many females as neccessary. I was planning on getting all females for that species just to avoid any excessive nastiness.

 

[madasafish]

The females are gray/silver instead of blue. They have rounded dorsal fins also. Pretty big difference between the sexes. Yeah, if there are that many doing ok in a tank, it's likely there are some females in there.

Let me also add to what I said before. Gouramis are at their most aggressive when 2 males share a tank. Aggression gets less in greater numbers, but still exists. The guys are really territorial, and when a tank is small enough (in my case a 55!) for them to be seeing each other routinely, there'll be trouble.

 

[tetrin]

Let me also add to what I said before. Gouramis are at their most aggressive when 2 males share a tank. Aggression gets less in greater numbers, but still exists. The guys are really territorial, and when a tank is small enough (in my case a 55!) for them to be seeing each other routinely, there'll be trouble.

does this aggro spill over to other species of gourami too? blue/gold/ pearl/ kissing gouramis?

 

[BASSNMAN]

Fish are like people, there are lots of personality types. I had 2 blue gouramis, same size and purchased together. After 2 days, one was always beating on the other. I gave the agressor away. I bought another smaller blue for my tank. The larger one gets along fine with him.

 

[bluefire]

I know its definately the case with blues