confused gourami

[Lukey]

why does my dwarf gourami swim from side to side at the front of my tank constantly instead of swimming round looking for food like the rest do? water quality and other conditions are fine, he's jus got into this stupid habbit recently which disturbs the otherwise peacefulness of the tank, has it just lost its marbles?

 

[Jennifer]

I have two gouramis in my tank (blue and sunset) my blue one does that sometimes too and I was getting worried. But I watched him for quite a while and he wasn't doing constantly (as I thought). I noticed he only swam like that for a few hours during the day (almost like patrolling his territory) but than early in the morning and later in the evening he would chillout or look for food. If I put food in the tank, he would abandon his "patrol" and act like the other fishes. The other thing I noticed was if lights were on in the evening both my gouramis and betta would pace in front of their reflections- if it was a problem I would turn off the lights.

So I am not entirely sure if this kind of behaviour reflects a major problem, I am sure someone with more experience will have better insight. My blue gourami seems quite happy and he is pacing less and less as he gets used to the tank and other fishes (I only put him in about 4 days ago).