Dwarf Gourami & Sunburst Gourami Advice - Please

[ptchinaz]

Hi All, (i am newbie)
I have a 30 gallon tank with gravel, 2 outside filters: 1 with bio-balls, charcoal, foam, 1 just regular charcoal filter, a few planted swords, plastic plants driftwood, and a few hiding areas. The tank has been cycled and I accomplish my 25% water changes weekly.

I felt i read up on what is compatible:

I have 3 rummy nose tetra, 3 longfin serpae tetras, 3 bloodfin tetra, 2 Scissor-tail Rasbora, 2 Reticulated Hillstream Loach, 1 albino cory, 1 Otocinclus, 1 Blue Dwarf Gourami.

I also had a 10 gallon with 2 Sunburst Gouramis, 2 cory, 1 Zebra Danio.

I have to take down the ten gallon as I need to go help a family member for an extended period of time.

I think we all know where I am going here - I put the 5 that I had in the 10 gallon into the 30 gallon. So that it would be easier for a friend of mine to maintain and feed my group. {Cross my fingers}

My concern right now is the Gouramis, they are all male. The smaller of the 3 Gouramis is hiding like he normally did in the 10 gallon. The other 2 which appear to be the same size, however are chasing each other. Actually the Blue and chasing the Sunburst.

There were no signs of chase/attack on other fish from the Blue Dwarf prior to this addition. The Blue is not bothering the smaller Gourami.

I have read about the Gouramis and how they can be with each other if they were all introduced to the tank at the same time.

One thing I was going to do is go get more plastic plants.

I know I am committing a big no no but I don't know what else to do. So any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

From experience, will this chasing go away?
Are they establishing some sense of order?
Any tips or technics I can offer my friend?
Any other suggestions you may have please share.

 

[Rivercats]

You can try taking all 3 gourami out, rearrange the tank completely and add more plants, then "try" putting all three back in at the same time. I am not saying this will for sure work but it is the only thing to try that may work (other than putting a divider in the tank). It may boil down to having to rehome the single gourami or the other two.

Something else the hillstream loaches prefer cool fast moving water. And in the future, schooling fish like your tetra's, cory's, and rasbora's do best in groups of at least 6.

 

[ptchinaz]

Thank you RiverCats.
I moved and add some more plants for now it seems like that is working. I have a few days for more observation and make adjustments as needed.

I should have mentioned that I did research the loaches, I do have a large air stone and a piece of driftwood, some rounded rocks and the water temp is at 76.8 degrees. And my my one filter seems to have a pretty good flow. They seem to be happy.

I didn't realize that i should have a larger number of grouping for my schoolers, I thought it was just an odd number. So thank you for that. Hopefully my group will make it till i get back and I will invest in a larger tank and get the proper number of schoolers for the groups.
Thank you again for the advice.