Butters

well, I got my new Dwarf Gourami today! I named him Confusious (I think its a pretty sweet name). He seems to be doing fine, but he's kind of shy which I figured he would be. and hes just exploring the whole tank. I also got 3 ghost shrimp to help get rid of unwanted food.

I'm still on the fence about what else to get in the tank. I dont really want babys of any sort, so any more help would be sweet!

TFA101

your aquarium info says you already have 5 black tetras in your tank. I would recommend adding anything else to this tank as you might upset the bio load.

Butters

whoops, i should probably change that. I got rid of them today, took them to a local pet store.

TFA101

NOW THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

i'll give you possibilities (The stocks include your gourami):

1.
1 => Dwarf gourami
2 => Bronze Cories

2.
1 => Dwarf Gourami
1 => Albino Cory
5 => Neon Tetras

3.
1=> Dwarf Gourami
4-5 => Dwarf Cories

4.
1=> Dwarf Gourami
Trio of Guppies

5.
1 => Dwarf Gourami
1 => snail (your choice)
7 => Celestial Pearl Danios

Alessa

dwarf gouramies are awesome! You will find them to be big gluttons and funny fishes in general... although a little territorial, he always chases my platy whenever he is nerby :P

Butters

thanks for the help guys! greatly appreciated! alright, I got another idea today, but idk if it will work. alright, here it goes. Would I be able to keep 1 cory and like, 2 male guppies? I really like the way corys look and I really want one, but idk if would be a good idea. I might be getting a couple more ghost shrimp just to help clean up some of the food left over.
one more questin: do corys need algea? I dont have any real plants, only fake. so would I have to give it algea wafers or would he be fine eating off of the scraps? thanks again

TFA101

cories are omnivorous and social. You'd be better off buying a trio of cories to add with your gourami. and cories dont necessarily need algae, though they will graze occasionally. feed them shrimp pellets and one half or whole (depending on how many cories you get) algae wafers. They will clean up scraps of food too, so i dont think you would need to purchase any more shrimps.

Barbrella

You shouldn't put any fish with your dwarf gourami for at least one month, to make sure he's healthy!

Fish Addict

You might want to be careful with the new disease going around with Dwarf Gouramis...

Butters

one month! that seems like a long time! Thanks for your help guys, greatly appreciated. I think i might just not get any cories and just get some more ghost shrimp, I wouldnt want one cory getting sad becuase he dosent have any of his own kind. I think i might just get a couple guppies! thanks for all the help again!

nugzboltz

Also, dwarf gouramis like floating plants, which is where they'll make their nests.

COBettaCouple

I think maybe some glass cats would be cool.

Barbrella

They are cool, but this is a 10 gallon tank.

goggles

dwarf gourami should be kept in a male a nd female pair, they can get very depressed if kept alone.

Shawnie

dwarfs prefer to be alone IMO ..they are more relaxed and less territorial...a 10 gallon is no way near enough room for two..they would be at each other all the time because of lack of room to create a territory

goggles

yes a 10g tank is too small for two but they should be kept in a male-female pair. and shawnie you should not have a betta in a community tank.

Shawnie

ty goggles...im a nawty rule breaker

sirdarksol

Guorami do not have to be kept in pairs. In fact, in a smaller tank (like a 10g), 2 dwarfs, even a male/female pair, can get violent.

And Shawnie, you really shouldn't have a betta in with guorami. I'd lay a wager on the betta picking a fight at some point in its life.

Shawnie

ty sir and at this point, 3 months later, everythings been fine..my community tank is totally against the rules as ive posted many times before...all of my fishies, to date, get along..not to say that one day that will change...the 55 gallon was the rescued fishies prior to knowing about all the guidelines to fish keeping...cant just get rid of them because its not normal to have them together...they are all watched and taken care of closely ...but I DO NOT reccomend this combination by any means

edit: sorry for the hijack post ...I appologize...its about his gourami's

goggles

yet again i agree the 10g is too small for two. i never said they have to be kept in a pair just that from my experience they are genraly sold in pairs.....oh and shawnie i had my betta in a tank with my dwarf gourami and i didn't listen when i was told that labrynth fish will fight, well my betta lost alot of one of his fins so now he has his own 10g tank. you should do the same.

Butters

thanks for all your help guys, even if you did get off topic a little. I'm thinking about getting 5 neon tetras, he seems to be getting really lonley latley, he just kind of sits at the bottom. and would 5 neons work? i think they would, but some extra advice wouldnt hurt.

goggles

yeah that is abit strange as gourami as well as most labrynth fish are top dwellers. the neons should work. they are fun fish.

sirdarksol

I did see that you agreed that 10g is too small. It was the "they should be kept in pairs" that I was disagreeing with. In my opinion, it depends on the setup.

Yes, neons may make interesting tank mates.

However, a dwarf guorami sitting on the bottom would concern me for the same reason it concerns Goggles.
I would do a few water changes, make sure the little guy is getting the best food you can get your hands on (bloodworms, high quality fish food, etc...), as well as some garlic juice and vitachem (if you can get your hands on it). DGs have been falling prey to a particularly nasty viral infection recently. There's no medicine to treat it, but it may be that a fish given healthy circumstances (i.e. water quality and food) stands a chance of fighting the infection itself.
I am not saying that this is what your guorami has. I don't know of any way of identifying the disease until it's nearly killed the fish. That's why I'm suggesting proactive treatment. Plus, if it's just that your fish is feeling a bit down, this might perk him up.
I do not know if this disease can affect other fish.

Barbrella

M/F dwarf gouramis should be kept in pairs only if you're planning to breed them, and are set up for this. Extra tanks needed to raise fry and to remove the female if necessary since the male may seriously harass and even kill her if she's not ready to breed. Plus, most petstores don't even sell females.

sirdarksol, if you're referring to iridovirus, it does seem to affect other fish, although how many other species is not known at the moment. This is why I suggested a long quarantine for the DG. I know it's boring to wait to get other fish, but not nearly as bad as watching everything in the tank die because you didn't want to bother with QT.

butters, I hope your little gourami will be fine!!

Butters

thanks guys! I just got done doing about a 30-40% water change and I re-decorated to see if he was just bored. when I put him back in, he just went behind the same thing he was behind all day, and just sat there... I hope he isnt sick or anything. but my shrimp seemed to love the re-decorating, they were swimming around like crazy! But i hope he will make it, I dont want to get a new one.

goggles

here i9n england nearly all pet stores sell females.

Butters

well, ive never ever seen a female gourami in the states...EVER!

sirdarksol

Someone said that their LFS wouldn't carry dwarf guorami because "they're ugly." Lots of Americans are big on colors and flash (I see it in martial arts as well as in fishkeeping), so I can see that females wouldn't sell as well as males. I know that female guppies and female bettas tend to not sell as well as the males.

Thanks, Barbrella. Iridovirus is precisely what I'm referring to, and it's good to know that it can species hop.

Barbrella

Keep an eye on him. That's all mine did last week for the 5 days I had him before he died.

Is yours eating anything?

It's good you haven't put any other fish in with him.

Butters

he hasnt eaten anything! i just put up a new post about that under gouramis. I think he has that new disease thing going around with DGs, Its really kind of upsetting because I really like him