Gouramis and domestic violence

[Silence]

So we have a female opalescent gourami that is very very sweet who was very saddened when her other gourami partner passed away so we introduced a slightly larger male who turned our tank into a domestic violence Cops episode.

We know that male gouramis can be aggressive so should we just plan on only keeping females? Have multiple females to a single male(to spread out the aggression)? Or should we perhaps get a male smaller than the female(s)?

It's a 30g tank and the male gourami hasn't shown any aggression towards any other tankmates. Thanks in advance.

 

[marvin]

IMHO mating behavior

 

[CoNMaN]

gouramis can be agressive to each other. Not so much to other fish. Sounds like you have the opposite situation that I had in one of my older tanks. I had a male and female. Female was slightly larger and would always chase the male away. He would hang out in one corner of my 55 gal tank all day/night. So when I setup another 30 gal, I moved him and he was much happier. From then on I only do one gourami per tank.

Good Luck!

 

[jo3olous]

funny thread name, now I know why my childhood friend's gourami was miserable from its counterpart when he had a 20 gallon tank full of other fish!