fishlips

I went to Big Al's with Dozey for their boxing day sale, and while he was shopping like a mad man, the kids and I checked out the best part... the fishies.
I noticed that they were selling Dwarf Gouramis in pairs. I was under the impression, that dwarf gouramis do better in schools of 6 or more? And that you should add more females than males?
I would like to add these fish to our tank, if I can put in a pair, but there is no room for 6 of them.
Will the male attempt to breed the lone female to death? I know that live-bearers do this, if the males out number the females.

Shawnie

usually they sell them as a pair but both are usually males.....check their coloring...females dont carry the bright colors like the male....I have a pair in my 30 gal and they do great with just the two..one is a sunset and the other is a blue powder so they dont even care about color LOL goodlucK!

fishlips

Good to know Shawnie..and thanks. They were blue dwarf gouramis. They did however, have the males and females together. I would prefer to have the males, but want to be sure, they don't become aggressive with each other.

Shawnie

what tank are they going in fishlips? my 30 is plenty of room and has lots of hiding spaces...my dwarfs are no where near as agressive as the bigger variety..so as long as they have space, they are great fish ..mine are in with angels and pictus catfish..and beautious cories as well.....cant wait to see pics

fishlips

Our tank is a 35 gallon...currently we have a 2 inch apple snail, and a 2 inch clown pleco, as well as 11 baby neon tetra's in a q tank, which will be added to the 35 in a couple of weeks.

jdhef

I have 2 Dwarf Gourami's in my 36 gallon tank and they seem to get along fine. One is a neon blue, and he is very pretty. He colored up nicely once I got him home

Alessa

You can have more than 1 DG in a tank ( I recommend 20 gallons for the first and 10 for every extra if youre going to keep more than one) but they definately do not need to be in groups and most of the time do fine by themselves.

FishJones

I had 4 DGs (all males as couldnt find females) in a 29 gallon tank and they would seem to get into it with each other. Took 2 DGs back and the remaining pair of DGs did great, never had any problems with them.

GouramiGirl1221

Gouramis most certainly don't need schools lol. I don't know where that rumor started, but I wish I could find out, as I heard it myself when I first entered the hobby. In my endless search, I have been lucky enough to find one female DG. I'm attatching pics of one of my males and my female so you can see the difference in their dorsal fins. The first is a male powder blue...males have very tall dorsal fins with a pointed tip. The second is a female sunset...females have short dorsal fins with a rounded tip. Don't let the appearance at the fish store fool you though...sometimes since so many males are kept in a small amount of space at the store they will get their "tips" nipped off if they get in an argument, so be sure to check the height of the fin as well (I made that mistake with my flame...Bella very quickly turned into Brett once the fin became more and more pointed lol).

Attached Images

	fish 042.jpg (240.5 KB, 8 views)
	fish 075.jpg (240.7 KB, 5 views)

fishlips

I'm thrilled with all the help here. I have read several articles that suggest floating plants for gouramis, and I can see by your pic of the male, that he is near a floating plant. Are there plastic floating plants available from the LPS?

Dozey and I have talked about live plants down the road, but first, we need to establish the tank with fish. Currently we have 11 neon tetras in a q tank awaiting transfer to their new home, and then I want to purchase the gouramis, who will also go to the q tank first.

Mike19

try to get a male and a female, the bubble nest they create is a beautiful sight.

GouramiGirl1221

When I took that pic I had live floating plants, but I was having a heck of a time keeping it in one "clump", as it kept breaking up and going everywhere. So now I have fake floating plants and live "rooted" ones. The thing I bought was a fake plant that you were supposed to put in your substrate and it was tall enough to create some floating stems too, but I cut everything off the base and ended up with enough to do my 55, 29, and then some left over.

FishJones

It seemed to me when I bought DGs like it was like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack finding a female DG. Tried chain and independent pet stores, not available in my area.

fishlover78

yeah, they can be tough to hunt down, would your LFS special order them for you?