Green Terror vs. Golden Gourami

[floridafish]

Ok, some of you may know that during Hurricane Jeanne here in Fl. and us moving into our new house the day after, we lost a lot of our fish (my favorites...the Columbian Sharks included). So, just recently we purchased a South American Green Terror for the 55 gallon because my hubby really likes Cichlids . Anyway, my larger Golden Gourami (we have two) was the boss of the tank until this guy came along and now (for the past 2 weeks) he has been staying away from the Green Terror who does chase him if they get too close to one another. I thought Green Terrors (or Cichlids in general) only messed with fish that were smaller than them or other Cichlids of different origins??...the Gourami is 4 inches and the Cichlid is 3 inches. Is this normal or do we need to have a species tank? I do not want my Gourami's or Pleco to end up dead because of this little terrorist.

 

[oscarowner559]

Yeah, gouramis are a community fish, and green terrors are not..the gt (green teror) will get over a foot long, so there will be problems..As for your pleco, you wont have any problems with it..

 

[phOOey]

Green terrors are a lot more aggressive than golden gouramis, even if the green terror was half the size of the gourami the gt would always beat him up.

You now have 2 options IMO. Either get rid of your gouramis and just keep the gt and the pleco in the 55g, of get rid of the gt and keep your gouramis and set up a community tank.

 

[Kyle]

Your Gt is just being a Gt. They are territorial fish, so that's pretty normal I would say. For now the gourami's are probably fine as long as they stay out of the Gt's territory, but when the Gt gets bigger you might have some problems.

 

[Avalon]

If you've had the gourami in the tank with the GT for that long and he's not dead or his fins aren't shredded, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I kept a blue gourami with my GT for quite some time without any problems. There will always be a time frame in which one fish will let the other's know where his territory is. The other fish have to understand where not to swim. Things should begin to settle down. If not, then you may be asking for problems as the GT gets bigger and lays claim to more territory. If they do, then you may be able to keep both together for a long time. My GT reacts to threats, and the gourami is not much of a threat, although he may casually mess with the gourami from time to time.

 

[floridafish]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess we will have to get another 55 g. tank strictly for the Green Terror. I read (before I purchased him) that when keeping Cichlids you should keep them from the same origin...like South Americans should stay with South Americans and Central Americans should be kept with Central Americans and I can't remember the other off the top of my head right now...BUT anyway, does this mean that because the GT is sooo aggressive that I can not have any other South American Cichlids or fish with him at all?????

 

[Kyle]

There are plenty of other cichlids that can be kept with green terror. To name a few that I think might work, Jack Demspsey, Jewel Cichlids, Firemouth Cichlids. To tell you the truth I DON'T consider Green Terror's one of the most aggressive cichlids. There are fish, for instance Red Terrors, that are far more aggressive than GT's.

I think it also depends the personally of the specific fish, and the sizes of the fish.