Butters

Well, today I took a trip down to my LPS to get some more gravel and de-chlorinator, anyway. Of course I look into the tanks just trying to figure out what I'm going to stock my 20 gal. with. and I saw these itty bitty fish and ID them as sparkling gouramis (the store didnt have a sticker or anything with price) I think these fish would be pretty cool to have in my tank, but how well would they do with a group of bloodfin tetras (I think I want those) Would they starve becuase the bloodfins eat all the food? do you guys think it would work?

clinton1621

Hmm, possibly... the one thing I would worry about is both the tetras and the gouramis can be semi aggressive so keep that in mind putting them together

MissMTS

Generally it is best to put semi aggressive species with other semi aggressive ones. If you mix semi aggressive species with very peaceful species, they will terrorize the peaceful species. I don't see a problem with keeping the sparkling guaramis with tetras. I kept gouramis with tetras and rasboras that were faster than them, and they always got their share of food. Sparkling gouramis are so pretty! I haven't seen any at the LFS's by me. Here are some links with info on the sparkling gourami.
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/gourami/sparkling.php
http://www.timstropicals.com/Gourami...ingGourami.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_gourami
The only think that would worry me is that the bloodfin tetras are so much bigger than the sparkling gouramis. Tetras can be nippy, so I would be worried that they might torment the little guys. I would go with either some rasboras or cherry barbs or another type of tetra that is smaller.

clinton1621

Lol, sorry thats what I meant by they are both semi aggressive in that they will harass each other, especially the tetras as Kate mentioned, definitely didnt mean to put them with extremely peaceful fish, I have my gouramis in with rasboras and they do very well together, the gouramis actually ignore them... neon tetras would probably work well too

Butters

thanks for the info and help! I would love nothing more than to get harlequins, but my LPS never have any in. one of the tanks says "harlequin rasboras" BUT THERE ISNT ANY IN THE TANK!!!!!!! makes me angry just thinking about it.

clinton1621

Try asking them to order some in for you, a lot of pet stores will if you buy them in advance =)