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White gourami chasing golden gourami

10K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  Byron 
#1 ·
Hey

i was wondering why my White LG gourami keeps on chasing my golden gourami. I dont see any nips but the white one keeps chasing the gold one. The white is slightly bigger than the golden.

Thanks
 
#3 ·
leifthebunny said:
Gourami are fairly territorial. Is the white just defending a specific territory or chasing all around the tank? Were both added to the tank at the same time? And are there enough things in the tank to give them comfort zones where the gold can hide out of view from teh white?
its chasing all around the tank. they were both added at the same time and there are a couple of hiding places where the gourami does go, but it doesnt seem to want to hide

Also one of one assorted platy is chasing the other platy.
 
#4 ·
Are they both males? I've heard that a number of the gouramis tend to get prety mean. My LFS was telling me about a gold gourami that a customer had that delighted in attacking other fish to include popping their eyes out. I would have thought that the white would be a little tamer, but fish don't bother to read the books ....
 
#5 ·
leifthebunny said:
Are they both males? I've heard that a number of the gouramis tend to get prety mean. My LFS was telling me about a gold gourami that a customer had that delighted in attacking other fish to include popping their eyes out. I would have thought that the white would be a little tamer, but fish don't bother to read the books ....
Yeah i heard that they can be very terrotorial, but i don't see no harm seeing that the gold gourami doesnt hide at all. I can't tell if they are both males but I assume they are becasue the LFS i go would usually have one gender for each tank of each fish.
 
#6 ·
first of all, how big is the tank?

That makes a big differance for multiple reasons. in too small of a tank male gouramis WILL bicker amoungst themselves, even if no permanent damage(open wounds from bites) is done. Also, from the sounds of it, you have full size gouramis, so unless you have a 55 gallon or larger tank, expect the battles to get worse.

If you do have a 55 gallon or larger, just ignore it unless one is being cornered and is unable to eat or move because the other has it pinned, or unless open wounds appear on one of them.

If you have less than a 55 gallon, take one of them back. if you have less than a 29 gallon, take both of them back.

Most gouramis sold in fish stores are male as the females tend to not have the brilliant colors the males do, most stores cant even special order females, so most of the gouramis you buy in the pet stores are all males...so, just like in the wild, expect them to get territorial and chase others out of their space or to wage war amoungst themselves.
 
#7 ·
leifthebunny said:
Are they both males? I've heard that a number of the gouramis tend to get prety mean. My LFS was telling me about a gold gourami that a customer had that delighted in attacking other fish to include popping their eyes out. I would have thought that the white would be a little tamer, but fish don't bother to read the books ....

I was going to ask this same question... Two days ago I added two same specie gouramis to my 29 Gallon tank. They are both no more than two inches in length, and less than an inch in height, so I assume they are young. I am having difficulty sexing them, but I believe they are both females. When I first put them into the tank, they were pretty close to one another, always remaining together, as I already had one adult gourami in the tank, which is about 5 times their size. Now today, i'm seeing one chasing the other all over the tank. I already knew Gourami's could become aggressive, so I purchased several hiding places, but the one being chased does not hide. So i'm wondering is one a male, and is just trying to court the female, or are they fighting. Every now and again, they'll put their lips together for a minute of so like they are kissing one another.

Can anyone clarify whats going on?
 
#9 ·
Now, channces are the white and golden gouramis are both actually blue gouramis (Trichogaster trichopterus). There are opaline, three spot, golden, white/platinum, and lavender color morphs that I know of. They're mildly aggressive. If there are only two in a tank, then it's magnified. These guys get up to 5" long. The tank needs to be arranged in such a way that sight lines are broken up, and territories can be defined. I'd say give yourself at least 20 gallons per fish. (Their Bioload would probably let you put 1 in 8 gallons, so you can have other fish use the remaining 12 gallons so long as they're not aggressive.)

The Kissing Gourami lip lock is not a kiss, it's a fight. This is not romance. It's probably two males trying to sort out dominance. Don't ask, don't tell. :) Note that kissing gouramis can get up to a foot long (usually they stick aroud 8"), can be very aggressive (YMMV), and they will eat your plants even though they prefer a heavily planted tank.
 
#11 ·
Thanks!

All gouramis are a little aggressive, particularly with each other, and especially the males. However, Blues (which Goldens are a form of) aren't so bad that you can't put them in most community aquaria. They'll chase each other around a bit, but that's just entertainment. They can get territorial with each other as they grow, too, so do up your aquascape to provide multiple zones for them to claim. Also, the more of them you have in the tank, the less aggression will touch any one of them (remember, the vectors of aggression increase by the factorial, so with 2 fish aggression can only 2 ways, whereas when you have 5 fish, there are 120 different ways aggression can flow. Much less abuse to any given fish.)

I recommend keeping at least three, preferably one male and 2 females, and for this you need at least 55 gallons at full growth (60 would be better, but 55 should be OK if you aquascape it to divide the sight lines up into 3 zones and make some nice thickets of stem plants in the back and corners.)
 
#15 ·
This is a common story with gourami. As earlier members noted, all gourami males are territorial. This manifests itself in varying degrees depending upon the species, and sometimes depending upon individual fish within a species. But the point is that a male gourami is much like a male cichlid, it has a territory and it does not welcome intruders. This is the fish's natural instinct, we cannot change it. Why a particular fish may be more tolerant of others we don't know.

Several species are in our profiles (second tab fro the left in the blue bar across the top of the page) and for each it gives recommended numbers of male/female according to the norm for the species.

Sometimes we humans feel we have to experience things for ourselves, but staying within the guidelines is safer and may prevent trouble.:)

Byron.
 
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