SHPEPoser

For some reason my gouramis have decided to tear up my plants and drag them to the top of the tank. They have the plants if the top opposite corners. I guess it's a territorial thing. Anyone have any ideas on how to save my plants from the maniacs?

JMatt1983

how many do you have? you should only have a male and female, one each, or else they will fight, mine haven't even touched my plants, but they are also buried under 2 inches of gravel

SHPEPoser

Well I have 2 males. But they dont fight at all. They dont dig up the plants or anything, they just pick at the stalks. They didn't start doing it until I got this feeding ring. When I got that one of them had the idea to shove plants into the ring. And the other decided to take plants to the opposite corner and do the same. They were doing pretty good since one was smart enough to cut the grass and section off the corner and proceeded to fill it in with other stuff.

wolfman21

Did you have any floating plants before they started doing this? Gouramis like floating plants and the cover that they provide, so this could be their way of making sure there is that cover.

SHPEPoser

Well I got rid of the gouramis since they are being mean to the others. but I did have floating plants in there.

poefox

Some fish like to have a sort of den they make. I had a betta that used to push duckweed to make a kind of canopy over his normal rest area.

Terry

I wonder if they're trying to get something floating on the top to help hold a bubble nest together?

vin

Gouramis are top dwellers and need floating plants for cover...A tall plant will do, but if you can get some floaters it would be better.....It's purely a security thing for them.

Narcicius

Kinda cool to see that kind of personality in fish, even if its something like needing floating plants.