aramsumair

Hello everyone i have a few issues with my new gouramis.

I have 2 blue gouramis and 1 gold gourami

One of the blues have become very dark colored and territorial with one half of my tank.

The other blue is still his silvery blue color from the LFS and is being bullied by the two others.

The gold doesnt pick on any fish but the silvery blue gourami and just stays near the top of the tank.

My question is what should i do for the silvery blue gourami is he going to be ok? Or should i move him ?

aramsumair

I have been doing some research and i think that my dark blue gourami is a male and this is his mating behavior. So do you think that my females will survive? or should i return my male to the LFS?

TFA101

having multiple gouramis in the tank can sometimes be a challenge as you can see.I would rehome the victim of aggression to a different tank if you have one, otherwise, try adding some plants or decorations so the gouramis see each other less often when they're in the plants

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Edit:

This could be mating behavior. Gouramis can be terretorial at this time.

aramsumair

OK so we have established this is mating behaviour ... i dont have a second tank for quarantine or mating .. plus it doesnt seem like the females want to mate. What should i do here? I am going to try reorganizing the whole tank so all the territories are changed.

TFA101

If reorganizing doesn't work, I would try to rehome your female, as she is in a very stressful situation

aramsumair

well so far it seems ok i haven't done anything .. just observed them for a day and the male is having mood swings .. sometimes he's aggressive ... sometimes not .. he's been doing his backward swim dance every now and again ... and he's noticing that the females could care less .. so most of the day now he's not very aggressive .. it starts bak up again after feeding time .. but wow the color changes he goes thru are sooo cool to see .. im going to wait it out some more and see what transpires .. as far as i can tell the female is very capable of defending her self and it is a wide tank, so she has lots of room to stay away from him.

Mike19

i have two dwarfs and they don't like each other much one stays behind an ornament and the other camps around the other side. i dont understand how they can be so peacefull in the LFS yet hate each other in my tank.

Alessa

Dependiong in the size of the tank they are in, gouramis should not be kept more than one per tank; they can get too agressive sometimes. For a "dwarf" i'd recommend 20 gallons per gourami... for golds much more.

GouramiGirl1221

The personalities of gourami can be very testy, especially the 3 spot varieties that you have. I've only personally kept dwarfs (so far...I plan to change that soon!), so let me tell you a little story about a funny situation that happened with mine to show you just how their mood swings are...

I have a 55 and 29 gallon. My first fish was my male powder blue DG that I kept in a 10 gal in my dorm room, but I decided to let him "rule" the 55 when I got it. I figured the tank was big enough and that there were plenty of hiding spots, so I tried adding a male flame DG about a month after putting my powder blue in. Edward (powder blue) didn't like that a bit and was chasing and nipping the other guy constantly, which worked out fine because I just moved the flame to the 29 gal because I hadn't done much with it stocking wise. Time passed, got another calm male DG for the 29, and those two were getting along famously...and then my 29 decides to re-cycle after I had added meds that killed the cycle (didn't realize that before hand...I'll never do that again). So, reluctantly, I moved everyone upstairs to the 55 temporarily, which technically way overstocked it, but hardly any of my fish are full grown so there was plenty of room long enough for the small tank to cycle, other than the fact that I was adding 2 male DG's in with my very spoiled and territorial Edward. Surprisingly enough, Edward is being a little angel and only gets angry when either of the others try to "hide" in the floating plants, which Edward has claimed as his territory. As of now I'm actually planning on keeping all 4 of my DG's in the 55 (3 males, 1 female) assuming they'll continue to get along, but I'll always have my 29 as a backup in case an aggression issue arises again.

So, obviously not the same breed of gourami, but things can change. Have you tried giving the male a "time out" while re-arranging the decor to see if that calms him down some? It may be something to try.

jen82

ive never kept blue or gold types. But i do have 2 dwarfs both male. Ive found the more hiding places they have the more social they seem to be. Its like they need the peace of mind of home to venture out. Also agree keeping more than 1 is a challenge and needs a big tank. Good luck. Jen