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I will be breaking down my 55g tank soon and starting over. Currently its a tank of death.
Am wondering what gourami would be suitable for a community? I know nothing about these guys really, and have never kept them. My son likes them though, so if I can include them in the new group of fish I would be happy. (and so would he)

thanks for the help

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

What else are you planning on having in the tank?

Here's a rundown of the more common gourami species:

Three-spot/Gold/Opaline --

These guys are considered semi-aggressive, but it really depends on the individual fish. Some are like lambs and others would give Convicts a run for their money. I'd say that if you are keeping a "big" community -- that is, one with larger instead of smaller fish -- you could keep one or two providing that one is female. Males will go at each other like mad.

Dwarves --

Again, can be aggressive or peaceful depending on the fish. I wouldn't recommend these because there is a viral disease that is positively ripping through the population, not to mention that they are fairly inbred in trying to get all the different morphs.

Honeys --

A beautiful gem of a fish. A little on the shy side, but peaceful. Will sometimes bother smaller fish, but I've never seen it. Quite small, though.

Snakeskins --

Will get large (8-9 inches), but overall a peaceful gourami. You could probably fit one in the tank.

Moonlights --

Never kept this species myself, but I hear that they're peaceful, and even a little shy. They get to a good medium size. I don't consider them that pretty, but some people find them beautiful.

Sparkling --

Small and peaceful, but definitely timid. Would probably get lost in a tank that size.

Pearls --

This is the gourami I'd recommend for your tank. Beautiful, relatively peaceful (males will go at it occasionally), and interesting to watch. Another medium sized gourami (~5.5 inches), so you could fit two in there.

Hope that helps!

Not Joe Potato


Edit: Added the bolds to make it clearer.

Here are the species I keep:

Blue:Mine is currently with my female betta soritity and is a little smaller than the gold in there.

Gold:My all time favorite gourami,I have a 6 year old Male in there who is quiet and peacful,loves the female bettas they actually swim with him sometimes,almost a schooling behavior.Gets along well with the blue.

Honey:Another great gourami,I have one in a 10 community with platies,red eye tetras,swords and a guppy.Quiet and peacful.

DG:Not my favorite gourami,but always a nice addition to a smaller tank.

I would do either 3-4 honey or 1 gold.My gold is pushing 6 inches.

Yup. I'm that crazy Twilight/animal/music girl

If your going with more active robust fish one 3 spot would be a good option and a moonlight or 2 would also work. If your going with slower moving relaxed fish then 2-3 pearl or honey gouramis would be a good option. It also depends how many gouramis you want. The larger ones tend not to get along with each other as well. Your best off keeping only one 3 spot or dwarf. Moonlights are more likely to get along but not as well as pearl or honey.

You could do something small like sparkling or croaking gouramis but I'd get a large group then. 8 sparkling looked great in my 55g but eventually I did give them the 20g long mostly to themselves because they were a bit more noticeable. A snakeskin might be a little large for a 55g but if your stocking lightly and want 1 large very visible gourami a snakeskin could be a good choice.

All gouramis do best in a well planted or decorated tank and will mostly swim along the edge of planted areas. They will overall avoid large open spaces. 3 spots and dwarf are probably the boldest of the common gouramis and also considered the most agressive toward their own and similar species.

Lindy
I have the Opaline variety it is a blue in colour and a very peaceful and hardy fish they look better in a group they dont actually school yet they do swim together. I have plenty of floating water sprite in the tank and they are in and out of it all the time. I only have males.

Here is a photo of one of them

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Attached Image:

Opaline Gourami

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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Might just be the angle of the shot, but that actually looks like a female to me, Keith. Anyone else think so or am I going senile in my young age?

Not Joe Potato


Edit: I just took a look at your profile, Keith, and it says you have 10 of them in your 5 ft. tank. It may be possible that you have so many in there that any intra-specific aggression is equally spread out amongst the members -- something akin to if you only have 3 tiger barbs, the weakest one gets murdered, but if you have a full school a hierarchy is established. That's about the only explanation I can think of for your fishes' apparent non-aggression, unless you were really really really lucky and got ten ultra-nice specimens. I think that the species' aggression is so well-documented that your case can be considered the exception rather than the norm.

The pics too odd of angle but it doesn't look wide enough for a female. They get rather large abdomens and have wider flatter heads. Much better to look at that than try to decide of the fin is long/pointed enough for a male or not.

I really don't think mixing 3 spots of any color variety is a good idea unless you've got a huge tank and several of them or they are adults already mixed before you get them. The odds are pretty high that if you get 2 or 3 and stick them in even a 4' tank someone is going to get beat up or killed. I did have some opalines together once in a 29g but that seems to have been an odd case of very well bred fish. The other opalines I've gotten have all been quite the killers toward their own species. Same with all the other color varieties I've tried to keep since then. I think unless you've got the tanks to seperate them if necessary or your sticking 5+ in a huge tank it's better to only get one. They will most definitely kill each other if one takes a dislike to another fish. Generally though they only display such agression toward other similar sized gouramis. I had issues with dwarf gouramis mixed with 3 spots and 1 opaline who disliked 1 of my male rams but otherwise I've even put them with both male and female bettas, sparkling gouramis, and spiketail paradise without issues.

It is possible there was one Female in the few I got. I took a good guess as they were small at the time. That photo was taken a few years ago. I think she passed away as I can no longer find her.

Have a look in [link=My Profile] http://www.fishprofiles.com/forums/member.aspx?id=1935[/link] for my tank info

Look here for my
Betta 11Gal Desktop & Placidity 5ft Community Tank Photos

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
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i pesonally love moonbeam gouramies, they are one of the larger gouramies but they will be fine in a 55 gallon. i am 100% surprised that they arent more popular. the coloration is amazing.

They may be alittle more aggressive whem older and breeding time, but that is with most gouramies.

Try looking into moonbeam, again the coloration is truely amazing and it is a definate nonpopular center fish.

Another good gouramie for a community is the pearrl or lerri gourami. Very popular and should be easy to find, alittle smaller than moonbeams and would make a good fish in a 55 gallon.

Blue gouramies tend to be all to common and they are like moonbeams, personally i dont care much for them unless i find a nice color one like a nice crosby or non spotted varity.

Sparlking gouramies would be fine for a heavy planted and smaller community tank. if your going with larger community fish then sparkling gouramies may have a harder time.

gaint gouramies, they are alittle smaller than a fully grown blue, not like the true gourami which will top out massive, but gaint gouramies are good fish, not all that jaw dropping, but they are cool. i have had 2 pairs just fine in a 20 gallon.

Sunset and honey gouramie, another smaller type, nothing i fancy but if you like smaller fishes for this tank, your son might enjoy the coloration of the reddish sunset gourami.

DG-s not really one of my favorites but again the blue morph is colorful and adds a nice electric blue coloration.

Snakeskin, larger gourami, not very colorful, my largest female was around 7-8inches, and a doll. Peaceful for a larger fish, but again the coloration or lackof coloration makes it unpopular.

there are plenty of smaller gouramies like paradice fish and liroance gouramies.

But it depends on the look you want to obtain.

gaint gouramies, they are a little smaller than a fully grown blue not like the true gourami which will top out massive

You got a scientific name for that one, Chris? The only fish that I know of that is called a Giant Gourami is the True Gourami that you mention.

The only one I can think of is the banded gourami (Colista fasciata) which is around 4" at adult size. Quite uncommon though. I've never seen one. Otherwise all the "giant" gouramis, Osphronemus species, surpass at least 1' and most of them 2' for adult length.

I'd place most paradise(macropodus) in the medium size and highest agression level. Definitely not small. My blue paradise was nearly as big as my 3 spots and definitely larger than a betta. About as agressive as a male betta too. A good labyrinth fish for a rather rough tank with no other labyrinth fish to be seen as targets. Now the Pseudosphromenus species like spiketail paradise are entirely different and closer to sparkling or croaking gouramis than actual paradise. Reason alot of people prefer to call them spiketail gouramis instead. They aren't really a paradise fish and quite suitable to a community tank or even a tank with multiple gourami species.

the gaint gourami that is small i think is called Colisa fasciata.

The true gouramie is Osphronemus goramy like u know.


Fasciata are alittle rare, i was lucky enough to find 2 pairs at my petco. my true gourami came from my local petland discounts.

Theyre common enough round here, and a far superior fish to a dwarf gourami, if a little timid. Peaceful certainly though, and easy to keep. I have a pair. thats an old photo, the male in particular has a lot of vibrant orange now, and in terms of colour more than a match for a dwarf gourami. Ill get a better pic when he stops hiding, I recently had to move them, so i'll be lucky if I see them all week!


http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a245/longhairedgit/IMG_4037.jpg

Second what BettaChris said - Moonlights are amazing. I kept a pair in a 40G and they were they jewels of the tank.

Very peaceful, tho the male will chase the female come breeding time.

The also look even better if you have a bunch of colorful fish to contrast them. Cardinals + Moonlights = wow!

Blue gouramis are too aggresive for my liking

Dwarfs are nice

Thanks for the replies.
I am not sure what else I will have in the tank. I've never kept gouramis though, and I thought it might be nice to have one... or two... or whatever. We do have chocolate gouramis at work atm. Not sure about them though.

Git, I do like the look of your fish, will have to see if I can find them on our wholesaler lists.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

We do have chocolate gouramis at work atm.

Not sure about the stocks you get in Australia, but the ones we get in the States are more delicate than a piece of fine china. Before they get shipped, they are actually preemptively treated with meds to prevent disease. I don't know many people who have kept them, but those that I do know have said that they have the sensitivity of a discus squared.

Edit: Just to give you some idea, here are some excerpts from the top Google search results for "chocolate gourami":

"Perhaps chocolates should be called croaking gouramis. They all died in less than a week."
and
"We added two more groups of ten each from this healthy batch. They survived less than two weeks."
- Source

"The Chocolate Gourami is the most difficult Labyrinth fish to care for."
- Source

"Because the Chocolate Gourami is so sensitive to poor water quality, some Discus breeders sometimes them as indicator species in their Discus tanks. This is because the Gourami will show signs of stress long before the Discus do."
and
"Chocolate Gouramis are the most demanding of the Labyrinth fish to keep."
- Source

Oh dear! Maybe I will scratch them off the list then.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

i only had two chocolate gouramies, and i toohave found them hard to keep.

If you are able to give them a nice 10 gallon with plenty of live plants with no other fishes, they will look lovely. But with other fishes, they will not do well.

Seeking of croaking gouramies, they would make a good idea for a smaller community.

I had a pair of croaking gouramies(the male jumped out and died) they can hold their own, they would like a smaller species tank like the chocolate but they can live in a smaller community.

Lindy , I've kept Opalines , Golds and Kissers for a long time .I have always found Dwarfs & Pearls a bit delicate.
The first rule I follow is don't get males . I find the females are very passive, especially Opalines .
I currently have 3 Opalines and 1 Gold and they spend all their time togeather under Floating plants .
Thats another big thing for Labyrinth fish , they love cover from above , it makes them feel safe .
Kissers are a bit big in the long run and the boys will fight the famous way and chase each other
at feeding time but they do very little damage to each other .

Can't speak for the other varieties .
Hope this helps
Garry

Licorice gouramis are probably more sensitive and difficult to keep than the chocolates but both are best suited for a species tank with perfect water quality.

Honey gouramis are a similar size to chocolate. Otherwise 3-4 sparkling, croaking, or spiketails would be a good substitute. The last one being my favorite and slightly larger than the other 2. This is one of the most complete labyrinth species listings I've found: http://aquaworld.netfirms.com/Labyrinthfish/labyrinthfish.htm