Tankmates for Gourami's

[Sailfin Pleco]

I've got a pair of dwarf and a pair of cobalt blue gourami's and was wondering what type of fish they are best with.
At the moment they are in a tank with a sailfin pleco, rasbora, blue ram, guppy, 2 bozeman rainbows, 2 red rainbows, peppered catfish and 2 bronze catfish. Since the gourami's were introduced to the tank we have lost 2 golden rams, blue ram and 2 guppies. The tank is a 27inch tank and it's never been overstocked. Nitrite and ammonia levels are less than 0.1ppm, nitrate is les than 12ppm and the pH is 6.0-7.0.

 

[Iggy]

Hello sailfin pleco & welcome to the tank!

I would avoid the following:

Guppies / Mollies (aka gourami food)
Cichlids (angels or rams)
small tetras (neons)

You could try:

more cories (fill in the colonies to 4 or 6)
5 to 8 phantom tetras
other larger bodied tetras

 

[Sailfin Pleco]

Thanks for that info, much what I thought. The problem is I have a 36inch tank which has got in in 6 tiger barbs, 1 green barb, 2 odessa barbs, 2 rosy barbs, 2 golden gourami's, 2 silver sharks, red tailed black shark and a common plec. Tried the dwarf and cobalt blue gourami's in this tank but the golden gourami's and tiger barb gave a lot of hassle. Do I just need to give them all time to settle down together or can you not mix certain types of gouramis.

 

[Iggy]

Gouramies are tough to mix. If your looking for variety try some bottom level fish, like a school of 5 cories. Cories behave a differently in groups than 1 or 2.

 

[Angelfish]

IME three-spot gouramis like your goldens do not get along well with dwarf gouramis to say the least.

I have sucessfully kept an angel with gouramis and there was never any problems between them.

Like Iggy said Cories are good

 

[baotchi]

what about tetra cardinals ? I was thinking about introducing a school of about 10 cardinals to my 27G gouramis tank. There a 4 of them, with a common pleco right now.

Simon

 

[tank maid]

tankmates for gouramis

dwarf gouramis seem to be very quiet fish. the two males that I have are getting pushed around a 35g tank by a sailfin molly male (He thinks he should be the boss).

 

[CAPSLOCK]

IME, gouramis do fine with just about anything except other gouramis. I've successfully kept them with danios, angels (babies, and the larger gourami played with them), black neons, kuhli loaches, cherry barbs, and platies. They got along fine, and mostly ignored the other fish. These were a pearl, an opaline, and a blue at different times.

The only other fish that they had a problem with was my catfish for some unknown reason ...it chased him around the bottom (and I here I thought gouramis were mid-to-top dwellers).

BTW, I've never had 2 gouramis get along.

 

[Iggy]

My Pearl gouramies did chase my baby angels, so they got pretty stressed out.

I don't like mixing Angels with gouramies because I think they are both 'feature' fish that prefer the top-level.

Lately, I have gotten into species specific tanks with bio-themes, and I am really enjoying it!

Just more food for thought!

 

[Sailfin Pleco]

I was considering some angels but with having tiger barbs realised it wouldn't be very nice for the angels.

 

[LadySarah]

You try some otos. I love mine. Or some other bottom dwelling fish.

 

[LadySarah]

oooh, had another though. I have a bamboo shrimp in my ten gallon with two gouramis and the shrimp doesnt bother them nor do they both him. I also have some tetras in there and the shrimp doesnt touch them either. The only time he goes near a fish is if it is already dead.