and I thought the Cichlids were bad..

The Turtle Whisperer Posts : 1930

A couple of months ago, I took in a handful of random tropicals that were left at some apartment after the tenant moved out.

Nothing fancy or anything, some blue gouramis a few clown loaches, two bala sharks and some red barbs, or fire barbs or something like that. (I looked them up at the time but totally forget now) They've been peacefully living in the same tank that I picked up with them, an ancient 40g super tall. (basically stack 2 20 highs on top of each other) Until now.

There were 5 gouramis total, 2 male and 3 female and enough places to hide that I wasn't too worried about it. Last week one of the males was dead in the tank, eh, no big deal I thought. The snails had worked him over so I didn't see cause of death. A few days after that, the other male starts making a bubble nest and mated with one of the females. I actually watched the egg laying which was kind of neat. One day later the female is dead.

I wasn't sure if it was just breeding stress or what so I was thinking I'd check the water and do an early change in case the water had gotten dodgy from the breeding. Nothing, everything checks out fine and I did a bit of a water change.

Later on that evening I come back to check on the tank. Both red barbs are dead, one bala shark was fine, but hiding the other was still alive, but looked like it had stepped on a mine and the gourami was doing it's best to beat the snot out of the loaches.

From what I've read up on gourami's after they laid eggs, was so long as there was enough hiding places everyone is supposed to be fine.

Definitely enough hiding places. Definitely not true. Smile

I wasn't feeling quite heartless enough to throw the possessed gourami in with the turtles, so instead I put it in with the couple of male pink convicts I had left. AKA the sucks to be you tank. Wink

Subject: Re: and I thought the Cichlids were bad.. Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:29 am

I have known gouramis to be verry aggressive to its tank mates even when there arn't any eggs and they are the only gourami in the tank. I have kept 3 and the only one I haven't had a problem with is the yellow gourami I adopted. The other 2 killed off 4 tetras, a handfull of guppies, and 5 hatchet fish before I gave them back to my LFS.

Subject: Re: and I thought the Cichlids were bad.. Mon Oct 27, 2008 7:27 pm

The sucks to be you tank hahaha...lol I like that. The gourami will probably do good with the cons!

The Turtle Whisperer Posts : 1930

One of the other tropical tanks I have has a single male gold gourami in it that's never done a think except hang out around the middle of the tank. This one blue one really was a surprise.

» Thought I would post a few pics of my 100 gal pond
» N-E Cichlids
» New Cichlids

and I thought the Cichlids were bad..

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