Gold Gourami growth

[Andos99]

I bought two gold gouramis about six months ago and they were both about the same size. I didn't know their sex at the time, but I now know that they are both males. Anyways, one of them as always been dominate over the other. He chases him around whenever he gets close to him.....always has. He's never done any damage, just aggressive towards him.

So after six months or so, the dominate gourami has tripled in size. He's about 4 inches right now. The other guy hasn't grown hardly at all. Still the little pint sized juvi size as when I got him. He still manages to eat hardy as I've made sure he gets his fair share. He just won't grow however. Very odd.

I'm sure it's due to the aggression factor, just wondering if anyone had any insight.

 

[tetrin]

what you see here is aggression-induced stress. gouramis are pretty hardy once they are established. feeding may not be an issue, as they have small mouths and the dominant one won't be able to ward off the sub-dominant male from all the food. but eventually the stress would be too much for the poor fella and would result in its death.

i had an exact similar experience with pearl gouramis. i had bought 3 males about a year ago. one died immediately. the other two fought for about a week until dominance was established. the weaker one used to move in the shadows as much as it could. during feeding time i ensured that both got fed. i tried to strengthen the group, but couldn't find some more in 3 of my lfs'. and to make matters worse, there was a gold gourami introduced slightly before them, that picked on both the pearls.

so eventually, the size difference was apparent. the smaller guy was about an inch shorter than the other pearl. about a month ago i found it gasping at the bottom of the tank for no apparent reason. so i removed to the QT, but it died within a few hours. the only cause of death i could ascertain was this slow-acting aggression.

since then, i have removed my other pearl gourami to my 20g, leaving only the gold in the 40g.
so i guess its not a good idea to keep gouramis in pairs in an aquarium. eventually one succumbs. sorry for the long rant .

 

[Andos99]

Thank your for your response, that was most helpful. I do have another 10 gal tank with 10 neon tetras and a few oto cats....would it be ok to put my small gold gourami in that tank?

 

[dcp]

I think it's better you separate your dominate fish to another tank, gourame just like this.

 

[meateater540]

Same thing happened to me, i had this red to blue fad gourami, the other larger blue one ended up killing it. I liked that red one too

 

[tetrin]

IMO, 10g's are best suited for dwarf gouramis. since a gold gourami can grow upto 6" (potentially), its growth would be somewhat stunted in a 10g. but you can keep it for a while till it grows to about at least 3"+ and then place it in a bigger tank.
since you have only ottos and neons (small fish) you wouldn't be increasing the bioload a lot. but it definitely isn't a long term solution.

 

[Acer]

i have 2 gourami of my own, i have 1 fire gourami and a standard dwarf, best fish i've ever had in imo, but like you said i bought the dwarf first and about 1.5 weeks later bought the fire dwarf.. the blue one is very territorial and doesnt like the red one very much, had to separate them.. i tried for a while to get a couple of weeks to get a couple of females. but still havent been able to find one. i was thinking that might curb blue's aggression...