Spastic Gouramis

[rallycat]

The gouramis in my big tank (29 gal curvefront, 7 medium-sized gouramis) have been freaking out for no apparent reason lately. It seems to happen mostly when I come home after being gone a few hours, 2 or 3 at a time try to jump out of the tank, and obviously, just hit the glass lid. I'm not an expert at guessing fish gender, but I think I only have 2 females in the tank, since they have shorter fins/wider bodies, etc. I would write all this odd behavior off to territorial stuff if the one who seems to be instigating the spazzing wasn't one of the females.
Also, another thing worth mentioning is that most of my gouramis are different, pearls, opalines, golds, and blues. I also have 3 tiny lemon tetras that always keep to themselves in the back. Any ideas? Anything I could do to calm them down would definetly put my mind at ease.

 

[Terry]

There are a couple of things that i think we could look at first, what are the parameters of the tank ie.. ammonia/nitrite/nitrate. The reason i ask is because fish will sometimes start to jump to get out of the water if there is something that is irritating them.
The second thing could just be dominance, if you have 7 gourami's they could all be fighting for there territories. To try and sex your gourami's look at there Dorsal fins, if they are males the dorsal will start to grow long with a point. If they are females the dorsal will be shorter and be rounded off at the end.

If it turns out that it is a dominance thing, then you could try removing 3 or 4 and then seeing if the remaining gourami's calm down, and i would remove males.

HTH

Terry

 

[Allivymar]

Just to add to that, 3 is really not a large enough group for schooling fish; that may be why your lemons are always hiding. Prob is, your tank is overstocked as is (7 gouramis is a LOT for a 29g). I'm betting theres some territorial issues going on in there as well with the gouramis.

 

[lmw80]

I definitely agree with Allivymar on her two points – your tank is overstocked and the lemon tetras are definitely not in a big enough group for them to be comfortable.

Also, you never said which specie or species of gourami was freaking out. I can tell you right off the bat that opalines and pearls tend to have a more peaceful temperament while blues and golds tend to be more territorial and more aggressive. Gender also factors into the equation with any species. My suggestion to you, is to sex the gouramis according to Terry's description and then see if you can trade in maybe 2-4 of the males for some more lemon tetras. With the remaining gouramis, I suggest you add live or fake plants and more decorations, or re-arrange the ones you have now to create more established territories.

As far as the freaking out goes, I noticed that type of behavior in my blue gourami when I had my tank overstocked. I ended up moving a couple of fish to my 46 gal, and the behavior of my blue gourami returned to normal.

 

[rallycat]

Thank you so much for the advice, I would've never thought of some of those tips. I'm running out to petland to see if they'll take my golds, since like you said, they're way more aggressive. Also grabbing a test kit, which I probably should have anyway. Thanks again!

 

[Terry]

No problem rallycat, that's what where here for.

Hope you get it sorted. good luck.

 

[lmw80]

Yes, definitly keep us informed!! Good luck!