What to do about a Bully

[u2_Crazy]

I have a Blue Gourami who is a bully. I bought him along with a red Gourami a few months ago and he has grown to be a beautiful fish. The red gourami has not grown as much and gets chased to the point where she is always hiding now. This Gourami has now started chasing around my Tiger Barbs and has now caused one of the smaller Albino Barbs to hide in the inch of water above my CO2 chamber. Here is what I have, I know it's overstocked but there is plenty of swimming room and the Nitrates are perfect, this is a planted tank.

29gal.
12 Tiger Barbs (7 normal, 1.5inch)(5 Albino 1inch)
2 Gouramis (1 Red 2 inch)(1 Blue 2.5 - 3 inch)
4 Cories (1-2inches)
2 Clown Plecos (2 inches)

 

[SerLunchbox]

normally, overstocking can be done but you have run into a problem that is caused from overstocking.

Gourami generally, in my experience with them, tend to keep large territories. Infact i once had a gourami that was 2" long and had a territory that was approximately 15 gallons!!

So what it sounds like to me is that you once dominant gourami has set his large territory and has been chasing everyone out of it. You have a few options here as i see it.

first you could get rid of your blue gourami OR you could get rid of the barbs OR you could get rid of both of the gourami.

Either way something will eventually give and you will start to see your fish getting beaten badly and potentially being killed.

 

[chabooky386]

id take him out before he kills someone

 

[jim532]

jail tank