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Good morning All,
I have a 55 gal community tank with assorted Tetras, Gouramies, 3 Tiger Barbs (both sick because I got lacks with my water changing schedule), Platys and a Pleco. Our tank is established for over six years now and I have the biggest, most beautiful blue Gourami I have ever seen now. He is the king of the tank and nothing is bigger than him (by far) except for maybe the Pleco. We were low on fish because of attrition and my kids wanted to get more so this weekend, we went on our family expidition to get some fish. We got 6 Platys to go with "Dori" (only one of four fry that survived recent birth), 2 small honey gouromis and 2 (male, I think) small paradise gouromi. I just read that keeping 2 male (I think they are male) paradise fish together is not advisable. They seem OK. Do you think I have a problem with all these new fish and my big blue guoromi and also having 2 males, should I bring one back. Thanks.

Justrfb

Juvenile paradise fish may get along, but as they grow, they will act more like betta males, and will not tolerate each other. Your blue gourami may not think too much of them either. Have you thought about setting up another tank? Welcome to Fishprofiles!

[span class="edited"][Edited by joe fishy 2004-07-28 09:44][/span]

Adding more gouramis of any type to a tank with an adult male blue gourami might not be a good idea. I had to move everything around in my 55g to add 2 powder blue dwarves in with my blue. I also redid the substrate so it was like putting them in a new tank. Pecan still chased the powder blues all over and ripped the tail on the largest one. It took a week for them to settle down. Paradise fish can be aggressive but if you have a female (hard to tell males from females) then you can put her in the community tank. My male recently attacked all my slower moving fish and removed their eyes so I would not suggest a small fish like an oto or cory be put in with paradise fish. They do alright with more active fish like loaches or schooling fish.

it depends on the fish. so fish like my big male can live in a tank with other fish no problem.

because of all the apparently contradicting evidence about male gourami behavior, i'd say you should wait and see. if the new fish are getting rough on each other, remove them. by then, why not enjoying them?
your blue gourami is supopsed to remain king of the tank, so no harm should be in his way.

sham, your paradise gourami got the ottos' eyes?? they're quite nimble. i wouldn't think gouramis can catch them.

yea, my male paradise took the eyes out of otos and 1 out of 2 cory. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I caught him doing it. He just swam up by them then suddenly turned and attacked their eye then kept swimming. I quickly moved all bottom feeders into the 55g from the 20g and my female paradise immediately attacked the otos as well. She's in there with them now with no problems but I took her out for awhile. The male is in his own tank with a few applesnails he has yet to bother.