Serpae nipping dwarf gourami

[Fishy Fever]

I had 6 Serpae tetras in my 20 gallon they only nipped among themselves. I added a male dwarf gourami and it was fine for a while. I added five more serpaes. Then the gourami started to hide. Then I saw the gourami being chased around by a few serpaes. Do you think this will keep on happening? Or will this continue.


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[Trainer_Ruby_]

Remove the gourami. serpae tetras are bad at nipping fins their name in Latin literally translates to "a little smaller" and "to bite"
Recommend removing the gourami asap. If you want to keep serpea tetras in a community I'd recommend nothing smaller than a 55 with 10 being the max to have. They also like to swim a lot. So a 20g long would be the smallest for a species only tank keeping 5-6. You may be fine with a regular 20g but the gourami has to be removed.

Hope it helped ^_^


Keep calm and drum on

[fishliker]

Yes please remove the gourami, poor thing has no place to get away.


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[ImACoolguy]

Yup remove the gourami or remove the tetras. That's the best way to solve aggression.


Caleb

[Fishy Fever]

I think it's a bit weird that they don't nip the cories or the otos and go nip the gourami. I guess I'll try a bit longer but, if that doesn't work, then I will have to put it in my other 20 gallon.


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[Trainer_Ruby_]

Otos tend to keep their fins tucked when not moving and corys have a poison barb that runs at the edge of their fins that's why the gourami is being targeted


Keep calm and drum on

[Fishy Fever]

I've been looking at the tank a lot and the DG is coming out of the cabomba plants and driftwood very often now, his nipped fins have healed and now it seems as if the serpaes aren't bothering him. The DG is doing good fighting back to the serpaes now and he can compete for food. I used to have to give him his own food in the corner but, now he can get some food from the rest of them.


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[emi1990]

I had two male dwarf gourami in my tank. I was sold these both together at the same shop.
They were fine for a while but then the larger of the males started relentlessly chasing the other male. I went to the shop and told them, they said it would calm down.
Waited another few days but the chasing quickly turned into fin nipping and as a result the smaller of the two had a shredded tail fin.
It got so bad that i had to separate them during feeding time.

Anyway i ended up taking the smaller of the males back to the shop because it was cruel to keep them together.

Now the dwarf gourami has 5 rummy nose tetra's a cardinal tetra and a rubber nose plec for tank mates and he has calmed down so much.

Wish i had known more about these before i bought them, they are beautiful fish but obviously don't like each other when there are just males in the tank.

Just wanted to put this on a topic so that if anyone else has issues with DG they can see.
I tried to research and so many sites said that they would be fine together but then other sites said they wouldn't can be quite confusing. Suppose it also depends on personality.
All that being said i think the DG is now the boss of my tank




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[RedDevil83]

Some gourami like to hide regardless of anything in the tank fyi

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[Gillie]

Ruby, it's funny that you mentioned the Latin name, I always called them little piranhas, but most people don't believe me.

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[fishliker]

I love dwarf gourami, that was the first one I had and I always have some now, but not a dwarf. Mine was very territorial and picked on every other fish in my 29 gallon tank. He was moved to a 75 gallon where he was fine. I am fortunate to have a tank large enough gor pearl gourami ( 55 gallon).


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[t4runnr]

Originally Posted by Gillie

Ruby, it's funny that you mentioned the Latin name, I always called them little piranhas, but most people don't believe me.

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I agree. When I had serpae tetra, they were my piranhas.