Paradise Gouramis?

Has anyone seen anything in their travels called this? They are dwarf size but look like a cross between blue and sunset gouramis.
Thanks
John B

 

Yes at the local Wal-Mart, their pretty cool looking. That's when I got Millie, My Neon Dwarf Gourami.

 

John, I have a paradise gourami. He's a great fish, really a well tempered tank mate (as you can see in my list of tank residents) Also if you click on my camera, there is 1 or 2 pics of "Pilot". He and my other gourami George get along great.

 

I would take it that the males have the nice colors? # of the 4 I got were grab and the mone smaller one had some nice orange on its gill plates.

 

You will see them get more colorful as they become comfortable in your tank. There are sometimes when my Pilot is so vibrant, he looks like someone painted him..I've never seen a female, so I don't know if they have less color.
You got 4? What else are you putting them with (if anybody) By the way, what size is the tank? ;D

 

They have them at my LFS and they are beautiful fish

 

Current just cycled a 55 hex tank. have 6 danios and 4 paradise gouramis and 2 cory cats.

 

Not to be a party pooper, but Paradise Gourami (or Paradisefish as it is called in my LFS) are much more like betta males than gouramies, in other words, they really can't stand their own kind. I'd say no more than 2 in a 55 gallon hex since there isn't as much surface area for them than in a 55 gallon regular.

To differentiate between male and female, the males usually have longer fins and are darker and will flare like a betta but the females won't.

I currently have both a male Blue Paradise and a suspected male Black Paradise. I love the black to death, he is so odd even though he ate half my RCS population.

 

do male dwarf gourami's of different coloration do okay with eachother, or is it best just to stick to the 1 male/2 female thing?

 

Male gouramies are still male gouramies. They are all Colisa lalia and the males can tell the difference between each other and know that the other is a male. Females are near impossible to find though, they are usually less colorful but sometimes you end up with getting a dominant male and a less colorful fish that ends up being another male. The only place I have heard of getting female dg's in is Walmart, never seen them anywhere else.

 

Hi!

They grow to 10cm. More info on them here...


Jacko is right about that as well.

 

so what about a couple of honey gouramis? would that work out about the same?

 

Hi!

Honey gouramis get along.

 

so could I get 5 or so honey gouramis (seeing as they get to be about 2" at adult size), not caring about the gender?

 

I would still do a little bit of gender dividing, say 2 males and 3 females because they are still slightly aggressive, but other than that I would say it is fine, I love my little honey gouramies back when I kept them in a 10 gallon.

 

so how will I tell the females from the males?

 

Hi!

Not 5 in a tank that size! I'd only go for 3. It is always safest to under stock a small tank. Reminds me - I've got some Aquatic gardening to do in my 8 gal!

 

Hello! I appreciate anyone's input on my situation here in advance I have two paradise gouramis, a male and a female, I have had them for about 3 weeks. They are in a 55 gallon tank, with (6) danios, (1) Bamboo shrimp, (1) nerite snail, (4) bristlenose plecos and (3) live plants. The female, within the past week, seems to prefer to hang out at the bottom of the tank. She's swimming ok, and will swim up to the top of the tank to breathe her little oxygen bubble, but then goes back down to the bottom. She is still eating, but definitely not as much. The male Gourami is eating normally, and swimming around the tank normally, but has developed seemingly overnight this patch in the picture. All the other fish seem to be absolutely fine, shrimp just had a nice molt, etc. I did a partial water change a few days ago to see if that would help, but it doesn't seem to have changed anything. Is there anything I can do for my gouramis? :/

Additional Info:
The tank has been running about 6 weeks, it does have a heater, and a filter. Water temperature is 75.7
Fish are fed 3-4 times a day, mix of tropical flakes, and dried bloodworms. I don't know the exact levels of nitrates, etc, however, we just had the water tested a week ago at our local aquarium shop, and they said everything looked good.

 

This Gourami is definitely not okay as you can probably tell. Did Mr. Gourami look this way when you got him?

That patch could be something called Columnaris which is a bacterial infection, the cottony type patch leads me to believe that.

You should get your own test kit ASAP, a good one is the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, it test pH, Nitrite, Nitrate, and Ammonia. The API Test Kit is around 30 dollars at most LFS's and pet shops, but you can get them only for around 20-25 dollars, such as on Amazon.

If you can't afford the API Test Kit, you can also get the Tetra EasyStrips, they test for pH, Nitrite, Nitrate, and some other things. but not Ammonia, they make a different test strip for that.

If you can't get or afford either, tell the pet shop to give the actual results in writing on a piece of paper, not just them telling you it's 'fine'.

A good product is called 'Lifeguard' and it's made by Tetra, which I very much trust, it's a fizzing tablet that you let dissolve in a cup of tank water and then pour back in, it contains different types of medications to hopefully help when you don't know the exact problem, it works wonders.

But I don't believe it is shrimp safe and I think most medications aren't, so you'd either have to transfer the Gourami or the shrimp.

You can buy Lifeguard here in a two-pack:

They also make one for Fungus and Bacterial infections:

Hope this helps!

 

If you don't have any way of testing your water, how exactly did you cycle your tank?

And by the way (it might be irrelevant but for future reference) feeding your fish 4 times a day is way too much and may contribute to deteriorating water quality. Twice is really the maximum you should feed an adult fish daily.

 

To address both of your questions, we have been having our water tested every weekend at our aquarium shop. Reason for such frequent testing, is that it is still a fairly new tank, and we had some unfortunate deaths when we started. The past three times we had the water tested, we were given the green light so to speak to try and add more fish again. (We also started using Microbe Lift)They said the ammonia and nitrate levels were good:/

As far as feeding goes, the employee at the pet store actually told us to feed our danios 6 times a day. That seemed crazy to me, so I thought I was being stingy only feeding 3-4 times. I sincerely hope it's not irrelevant at this point....

If you don't have any way of testing your water, how exactly did you cycle your tank?

And by the way (it might be irrelevant but for future reference) feeding your fish 4 times a day is way too much and may contribute to deteriorating water quality. Twice is really the maximum you should feed an adult fish daily.

 

To address both of your questions, we have been having our water tested every weekend at our aquarium shop. Reason for such frequent testing, is that it is still a fairly new tank, and we had some unfortunate deaths when we started. The past three times we had the water tested, we were given the green light so to speak to try and add more fish again. (We also started using Microbe Lift)They said the ammonia and nitrate levels were good:/

As far as feeding goes, the employee at the pet store actually told us to feed our danios 6 times a day. That seemed crazy to me, so I thought I was being stingy only feeding 3-4 times. I sincerely hope it's not irrelevant at this point....

Well please get your own test kit if you can, just so you know, don't get the API Test Strips, they are horrible and inaccurate, get either the Tetra Strips or API Master Freshwater Test Kit.

I feed all my tanks, (I also have Danios) once a day and they are perfect. It takes most fish 48-72 hours to digest a full meal.

I'd recommend only feeding once a day to help keep waste down.

 

To address both of your questions, we have been having our water tested every weekend at our aquarium shop. Reason for such frequent testing, is that it is still a fairly new tank, and we had some unfortunate deaths when we started. The past three times we had the water tested, we were given the green light so to speak to try and add more fish again. (We also started using Microbe Lift)They said the ammonia and nitrate levels were good:/

As far as feeding goes, the employee at the pet store actually told us to feed our danios 6 times a day. That seemed crazy to me, so I thought I was being stingy only feeding 3-4 times. I sincerely hope it's not irrelevant at this point....

I will put up front that none of this is meant to reflect on you. Bad advice given to beginners is unfortunately common in this hobby as are fish deaths resulting from it.

I'm afraid to say that it seems like your aquarium shop employee(s) might not know what they are talking about. Feeding your fish that many times a day is a terrible, terrible idea and most likely will lead to serious problems in your tank even if your tank is doing well otherwise.
I feed my fish once a day (aside from fry and some needy diminutive fish) and even fast them every couple days. Feeding them in the mornings and evenings both couldn't hurt but more than that is excessive and upwards of 3 times is just asking for trouble. I would change your routine right now, it may actually improve things.

How much do you feed them and do you vacuum your substrate when you do water changes (in fact, how often do you do this and how much do you change out).

If they don't know how to feed fish I doubt they would be able to tell what levels of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate are safe. You really should insist on getting specific numbers next time or (easier actually) just get a test kit yourself.

I now strongly, strongly suspect your water levels are not okay. Please do a large water change (50%) right away and get specific numbers on what is going on in your tank.

 

thank you so much for your input!! No, the fish definitely didn't look like that when we bought him. I have only noticed this patch for a day or so, I don't see any patches on the female, but she is definitely not acting right.

I did find an older test kit I purchased a couple years ago when I had fish (pictured) but will be out in the morning to find the one you've mentioned below as well. I can certainly start up a new tank to treat the gouramis, but how do I prevent them from dying due to it being an uncycled tank?

This Gourami is definitely not okay as you can probably tell. Did Mr. Gourami look this way when you got him?

That patch could be something called Columnaris which is a bacterial infection, the cottony type patch leads me to believe that.

You should get your own test kit ASAP, a good one is the API Freshwater Master Test Kit, it test pH, Nitrite, Nitrate, and Ammonia. The API Test Kit is around 30 dollars at most LFS's and pet shops, but you can get them only for around 20-25 dollars, such as on Amazon.

If you can't afford the API Test Kit, you can also get the Tetra EasyStrips, they test for pH, Nitrite, Nitrate, and some other things. but not Ammonia, they make a different test strip for that.

If you can't get or afford either, tell the pet shop to give the actual results in writing on a piece of paper, not just them telling you it's 'fine'.

A good product is called 'Lifeguard' and it's made by Tetra, which I very much trust, it's a fizzing tablet that you let dissolve in a cup of tank water and then pour back in, it contains different types of medications to hopefully help when you don't know the exact problem, it works wonders.

But I don't believe it is shrimp safe and I think most medications aren't, so you'd either have to transfer the Gourami or the shrimp.

You can buy Lifeguard here in a two-pack:

They also make one for Fungus and Bacterial infections:

Hope this helps!

 

thank you so much for your input!! No, the fish definitely didn't look like that when we bought him. I have only noticed this patch for a day or so, I don't see any patches on the female, but she is definitely not acting right.

I did find an older test kit I purchased a couple years ago when I had fish (pictured) but will be out in the morning to find the one you've mentioned below as well. I can certainly start up a new tank to treat the gouramis, but how do I prevent them from dying due to it being an uncycled tank?

It is hard to tell because the lighting is warping the colours but I think the test is indicating there is nitrite in your tank. The square looks quite a bit more pinkish than the white one for chlorine further down (plus we can't tell from this strip if there might be ammonia).

You can actually keep fish healthy in an uncycled tank by either doing large water changes every 1-3 days depending on the stocking level (i.e. if it is a small tank every day, if it is a larger thank you can get by doing less). Alternatively you can get a product like seachem prime that detoxifies low levels of ammonia in your tank. In that case though you could just keep them in your one tank and dose the tank with prime. Might be easier.

 

One point I would like to make is I have tested both apI liquid and apI test strips and find that they very close. Now that said people are doubting the accuracy of all testing both liquid and strips and from different manufactures.
We have to use something though so pick one and use it. Taking water to the store once a week is better then nothing but you should test yourself and when a tank is new test often.

 

You're welcome. But as others have suggested, do lots of water changes, keep an eye on your parameters, and use Seachem Prime to help detoxify temporarily.

Just keep a close eye on the Gourami, I had a tank recently experience a die-off due to a form of Columnaris and it started with similar patches, so monitor them and it's also good to keep some basic medication on hand so you don't need to fret about it in the future, some good stuff to have on hand is Freshwater Aquarium Salt (Helps with Gill function when sick), Seachem ParaGuard (Helps with Parasites, and Tetra Lifeguard tablets.

Hopefully, I'm not overloading you with so much information, so just let's get Mr. Gourami back to feeling better.

But for the test, your tank is not cycled at all, so keep up with those water changes and it does look like you have some Nitrite.

 

Oh and when looking and matching the colors, try to do it outdoors in the daylight as some indoor lighting can warp/distort the colors, or try to do it under a daylight colored lightbulb.