Mixing gouramis

Hi all! I'm creating a paludarium for my son in the 29gal tank I got for him for his birthday and originally wanted to get a neon blue dwarf gourami for it. I love the look of the little guys and my son's favorite color is red, so their red stripes would be perfect. However, I was in Petco today and saw gold gourmis and opaline gouramis. I really liked both of them...a lot! However, on the fish info stickers, it said they get to be 4" while the neon blue dwarf only gets to be 2" (I've found that Petco's info stickers are generally more correct than Petsmart's and are relatively accurate overall). Would it be a bad idea to put a gold or opaline gourami in with a neon blue dwarf? The neon blue dwarf if a definite for going into the tank. The other two are ones that I like, but they don't *have* to go in. Thanks!

 

Be careful with the dwarf gouramis some carry the DGIV a virus that is fatal. I just lost mine 1 week ago to the virus yet I have one (in another tank) that at this point seems unaffected. If you decide on DG be sure you get them from a reputable breeder. Mine that just passed came from petsmart. The larger gouramis are not affected by the virus. Gold and opalines are not affected. The pearl gourami is beautiful also.

 

I would consider mixing a dwarf gourami and a gold or opaline gourami to be risky, especially in a 29g tank. They are both "fiesty" aka "aggressive" towards other members of the gourami family.

However, I may be wrong, so hang on for some more responses.

 

Think of dwarf gouramis like bettas, most of the time they are very aggresive to each other and try to kill each other. Now the opaline gourami can get up a monstering 6in. I had one that Maxed out at 5in and he was big but I've seen 6in ones and they are huge.
I would recomend only keeping one type of gourami, the smaller dwarf gourami. But if you wanted to, you could try to find some honey gouramis and only get those. They are peaceful and colorful so you could get 2 or 3 honeys, but don't mix honeys with dwarfs.

 

Especially for the size of the tank and the size that the larger gouramis can get, I would stay away from mixing the different breeds. The males can be quite territorial so maybe you could go with a female or so of the neon blue dwarf gourami if you enjoy the coloration and were looking for more than one gourami for your tank.

 

tHe females are usally bland and sivlery, if you want gouramis that you can have more than one of, go with honey gouramis, and honeys are immune to the indovirus

 

Don't necessarily want more than one gourami, I just liked the way the golds and opalines looked, so if they were compatible I was going to do more than one. But, as you've all pointed out, they aren't compatible, so just the one neon blue dwarf it is! Thanks!!

 

I know I'm chiming in a bit late, but I just wanted to put it out there that I have a Dwarf Gourami and Honey Sunset Gourami together in a 29 gallon (along with 2 pairs of FP Gardneri Killies). The 2 gouramis basically completely ignore eachother and never give chase. However, the male killies and the DG chase eachother all the time (rarely nip; I think they are all too fast to catch eachother), perhaps because FP Gardneri Killies are similarly colored to the DG. The fact that the two gouramis completely ignore eachother may be due to the fact that my tank is heavily planted and/or the DG is sidetracked playing turf-war with the killies. In any case, it has been my experience that some fish that are not commonly compatible can often learn to get along if the tank is heavily planted with lots of little hideaways.

 

all fish have their own personalities,i have 6 gouramis together 5 females 1 male ( 2 golden, 1 opaline, 2 blue, 1 platinum) and they all do well, they are small still with the largest at around 3 inches and are normaly housed in a 55g tank at school where i teach since it is summer they are temporarily housed in a 20g with no problems but cant wait to get them back home in their 55g.... what works with one group of fish might not work with the next, but i have not had problems with them together