Licorice Gouramis

tophat665

From everything I have read, this is either the finickiest or second finickiest Gourami (after Chocolate). My reading suggests to me that they positively require live food, that their water should have the hardness of air, and that the PH should be around that of Cider Vinagre, and if it gets above 6.0, they explode. Now, over on Livejournal, someone was recommending them to an inexperienced person with a tiny tank (5.5 gal), water you can sculpt, and no reaily available source of live food. I called her on it and she says that shed kept them in hard water (buffered down to 6.5) and fed them flake and they thrived.

So what's the scoop on these? Fragile, species tank, ochid-like fish, or rough and tumble unkillable community fish. Inquiring minds want to know.

Lupin

Rare fish like the chocolate gouramis are rather tempting even to beginners. Now, we know why Discus are expensive. Sometimes prices serve as a deterrent to beginers unless you're very rich(wouldn't happen to beginners who fear losing fish for the first time though).

I had a read with this article.

5 gallons is far too small. It is very tricky to maintain ideal water conditions. I would keep them in a large tank rather than small.
Is that "had" or "would"? If it was the former, it would be best if she tells more details about how she managed to keep them in such a small tank successfully. If it was the latter, then it's a definite no-no.

And flakes alone is not sufficient. All fish should be fed with various food menus, not just on one food exclusively.
I won't comment much on it. But I doubt any fish would explode simply because of the pH. pH isn't much of a concern except on very finicky fish like this one and large swings but the question is why would this fish simply explode because of pH.

tophat665

Blue,
She had kept them in hard water in a 5 gallon tank on a diet of flake and frozen. She also is coming across as a gourami expert, so I'm just going to let her slide. The guy she was advising settled on Sparkling Gouramis (which may have their own issues - I don't know.)

I was being flip about them exploding. You and I both know that fish don't do that. They just burn very very fast. j/k. I meant instant death or something in that neighborhood.

Lupin

Interesting. Where's the article about her expertise? I may give it a read. Not sure what I was searching for in the web.

tophat665

Now that's why I am not really following up on this too hard - this was in a Livejournal post, so this is my first stab at determining if she's blowing smoke or not. While it might be interesting to find out exactly how she accomplished this, I'm thinking the practical value is low compared to the time outlay.

Perhaps I'll post a leading thread - "Who knows about licorice gouramis" on that forum in a couple months and see what arises.

joeshmoe

i wold stay of chocolate gouramis for now untill uve kept gouramis for a lil while. mybe try some flame gouramis and gold gourami these guys are great and mine have lived thru nh3 spikes and every thing.

Lupin

Chocolate gouramis are far different from licorice gouramis.
I'm not sure what that flame gourami is. A lot of lfs would just name them differently. That sounds more like Colisa lalia.

joeshmoe

joeshmoe

[quote="Blue"] lol i ment licorice

Lupin

Dwarf Gourami(Colisa lalia).