They said sparkling gouramis are peaceful!

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Roxie98

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Aug 4, 2021
Messages
3
New here to fish keeping, I've had my tank for about two weeks. I've done a lot of research on everything about general fish tank set up and somehow managed to cycle my tank in 9 days. (I used some filter from another cycled tank-although idk how that one is cycled when it's 2 gal lol) it was a very unhealthy cycle process to say the least, but no fish died. Anyways, I have 6 sparkling gouramis as of today. I started out with three. At first the gouramis weren't really all that mean to each other. Then they got more and more comfortable and started to chase each other from time to time. Yesterday when I got home from work one fish had his fins all sorts of messed up, obviously from another one of the fish. I have two girls and one boy. The boy likes to stay in his cave and only come out if someone gets to close. But the girls....well one girl is a mean mean mean little one, she is the one who hurt the other girl. I had to take her out of the tank today because I had three more sparkling gouramis coming and they couldn't even explore the tank because of her. So idk what to do, the boy is kinda mean when anyone comes close to his rock. Mind you I have a HEAVILY planted tank and I just recently got four more decorations with holes for them to hide in. It is a ten gallon tank btw
Thank you.
 
I PM'd you a link and some info.

Sometimes, a fish you think is a female, is a younger/less developed male. A "sneaker" male.

Not too sure if that is the case here, but it is definitely possible. I have a group of female Betta, but one female at a time, would die off with regularity. Perfectly cycled, water parameters and they were all young. But one day I did indeed identify the attacker and found it was a (young) male which wasn't correctly identified when it was a little younger!!!

And sometimes, fish are just huge jerks and need to find a new home.

Shining a light on the ovary area says live aquaria
https://www.liveaquaria.com/product/1562/?pcatid=1562


And other information indicated a larger number of fish less males than females, will spread out the aggression. Males are still somewhat territorial.
 
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Yeah I have shined a light on them, I have a light for my plants and when the gouramis come up to eat they are big enough to definitely tell which are which. At first it was the male kinda being aggressive towards both females (which is still odd I think) but then he found his little rock cave and now one of the females has become the bully to all the fish. It's weird the bullies will sit at the top of the aquarium, in the middle of the tank and like wait till they see any fish and chase them. I might have to take her out, but the other three I just got I think are all males but they are too young to 'really' tell. And I don't want four males and one female in my tank. (I get them shipped to me from that site actually)
Ugh. How "peaceful".
 
Yeah I have shined a light on them, I have a light for my plants and when the gouramis come up to eat they are big enough to definitely tell which are which. At first it was the male kinda being aggressive towards both females (which is still odd I think) but then he found his little rock cave and now one of the females has become the bully to all the fish. It's weird the bullies will sit at the top of the aquarium, in the middle of the tank and like wait till they see any fish and chase them. I might have to take her out, but the other three I just got I think are all males but they are too young to 'really' tell. And I don't want four males and one female in my tank. (I get them shipped to me from that site actually)
Ugh. How "peaceful".

That isn't really peaceful terrible. Being it is that site maybe a different option.
Aquabid might be an option, or ebay for a highly regarded seller and maybe they would have some.

This is a shop locally to me. They ship as far as I know but they are out of stock right now. If you call and ask, they will usually order the fish for you. Also worth a try. You can tell them a Colorado Aquarium Society member recommended you call and check with them.
https://www.aqua-imports.com/product/sparkling-gourami-trichopsis-pumila/

Often with a local breeder, you would be able to ask for females. So that route might be better and less expensive. I would try that first. and quarantine the new ones.

Also Wetspot but they do not seem to indicate any separate sexing and they are wild caught.
in the Gourami section
**oh, and I just saw this...
PLEASE NOTE that we cannot sex fish that are listed as unsexed.
 
How would one find a local breeder because I have some questions for them lol. I have taken her out of the tank and put her by herself. It's a shame because she really is beautiful. I also read that sometimes a ten gal is just a little too small and when they transferred over to a slightly bigger tank it fixed everything. I'm eventually going to do that
 
Look for an Aquarium Society group in your state. Or a FB, band.us group. Just put the question to them if anyon is, or knows who is a breeder or has previously raised them.

Some of the band.us are auction or sales sites. Not always bad but also you do not always know who you're buying from.

The dollar per gallon sale at Petco is frequent and a 20G long tank is nice. You can fashion your own top of acrylic or glass and buy a hinge for it. Or purchase a glass to which id probably $15-20 if you wanted. Some stores do have good sales in awauarium sets and kits.
 
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