Gourami behaviour

So about a week ago my husband, who usually completely ignores my hobby, was at the petstore for dog food and came home with a beautiful powder blue gourami. He really like it because it was blue and said it could be his fish.

Now for the problem: my 38G tank houses guppies and a crowntail betta.

Without much option (as my daughter's 2 10 gallons also house bettas) I put him in my tank.

It has been 7 days and so far I have seen 0 signs of agression from any fish and no nipped fins in any of my guppies. They have all seen each other at feeding time and literally never even acknowledged the other. My betta spends most of his time hunting near the bottom for guppy fry.

However Drax (gourami) is still glass surfing along the back wall. He is a fantastic eater and swims right up to anyone walking by in hopes of a treat.

My question is: is this normal behavior? At 7 days he is not a exactly a 'new' fish but he's not a veteran of the tank either. Is there hope of him settling? Has anyone had this combo work? (I do have a friend that has just begun cycling a 10G who wants a gourami as a back up)

My tank is 36Lx19Hx12D. It has fake plants (I have some and anubias and java fern in isolation for the next 10 days...watching for black beard algae). It houses 4 balloon mollies, 10 guppies, 2 rabbit snails, 1 betta and 1 gourami.
The parameters are ammonia-0.25 (I got 5 guppies a couple days before I was gifted the gourami and am doing 30% water changes every 5 days and dosing with prime between), nitrite-0 and nitrate-5-10. Temperature is 78.

 

When I was younger I kept a female betta and a male dwarf gourami in a 10gallon with schooling fish. The tank was veryyy overstocked, my maintenance was awful, 10g is wayy too small for a gourami, but they got along. Very well actually. Obviously this set up was not good at all, but based off this experience, I’d say it might work. It all depends on the personality of the gourami. As for glass surfing, I got a honey gourami not too long ago and for the first week or so he would glass surf a lot. After that he settled in though and is quite happy. I’ve got a mop of frogbit that he absolutely adores. My female betta- male dwarf gourami duo hardly noticed each other, I think partially because that female betta was an absolute puppy dog and was black in color.

Is your tank cycled? You should not be reading ammonia

 

When I was younger I kept a female betta and a male dwarf gourami in a 10gallon with schooling fish. The tank was veryyy overstocked, my maintenance was awful, 10g is wayy too small for a gourami, but they got along. Very well actually. Obviously this set up was not good at all, but based off this experience, I’d say it might work. It all depends on the personality of the gourami. As for glass surfing, I got a honey gourami not too long ago and for the first week or so he would glass surf a lot. After that he settled in though and is quite happy. I’ve got a mop of frogbit that he absolutely adores. My female betta- male dwarf gourami duo hardly noticed each other, I think partially because that female betta was an absolute puppy dog and was black in color.

Is your tank cycled? You should not be reading ammonia

My tank is bigger at 38G. The 10G is the option I have if problems develop. My tank is cycled but I'm experiencing an ammonia spike from adding fish. Definitely not ideal but I'm hoping once I add the real plants combined with frequent water changes it will quickly settle down. Until then I have my siphon at the ready...

 

The aquarium should have one owner and other people should not buy fish for it. I'd make that a one and only time. My partner would never think of it without asking me first. I wouldn't feed them dog food either, there are specially made food for fish. OK I was joking all along or half-joking.

But seriously, you will be very lucky if you don't have behavioural problems with those fish. It takes a few weeks for fish to completely settle in. Glass surfing is a sign it hasn't settled in. A casual trawl on here will find aggression problems with gourami, betta and mollies and guppies have their own problems of tails being bitten, males fighting, females dying through continuous pregnancy exhaustion and then there's overpopulation. You will have to manage all these issues but that's part of what makes fishkeeping interesting.

The tank looks nice but to keep it that way in my experience would mean either heavy and rapid plant growth to soak up the nutrients and get things in balance or, probably easier, treatment of all the non-living ornaments by removing them, painting on an algicide, leaving an hour, rinsing and returning. I use Gluteraldehyde (Easy Carbo, Flourish Excel etc.) and some use Hydrogen Peroxide (food grade - no other additives).

 

The aquarium should have one owner and other people should not buy fish for it. I'd make that a one and only time. My partner would never think of it without asking me first. I wouldn't feed them dog food either, there are specially made food for fish. OK I was joking all along or half-joking.

But seriously, you will be very lucky if you don't have behavioural problems with those fish. It takes a few weeks for fish to completely settle in. Glass surfing is a sign it hasn't settled in. A casual trawl on here will find aggression problems with gourami, betta and mollies and guppies have their own problems of tails being bitten, males fighting, females dying through continuous pregnancy exhaustion and then there's overpopulation. You will have to manage all these issues but that's part of what makes fishkeeping interesting.

The tank looks nice but to keep it that way in my experience would mean either heavy and rapid plant growth to soak up the nutrients and get things in balance or, probably easier, treatment of all the non-living ornaments by removing them, painting on an algicide, leaving an hour, rinsing and returning. I use Gluteraldehyde (Easy Carbo, Flourish Excel etc.) and some use Hydrogen Peroxide (food grade - no other additives).

Agree. Only wanted to add that Gouramis benefit of adding floatingplants or ppants that will grow allong the surface.

 

Right now I have no living plants in the tank. They are in quarantine to make sure they have no unwanted hitch hikers or BBA. I plan on fastening the anubias close to the surface to provide some cover (like a live betta leaf) and the java moss is going on some Styrofoam balls for a floating look similar to this...

My betta and most of my guppies have been in the tank for over 6 months so I'm hoping he will continue to behave with them. As for the gourami I will watch him for aggression and move him to my friend's tank once it is cycled if any problems arise.