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hola
i got a 10g that will be reststocked shortly and dg's always caught my eye. ive read all i could find about them. seems one male with 1 or 2 females is the best choice. for tankmates a shoal of neons (6)would look great but was wondering if they are too small to be housed with dg's. as cleanup crew i was thinking 2 ottos and lots of ghost shrimp. do you think this might work?thanks

p.s this tank is medium planted with bacop,riccia,val,small sword and in the future marimo balls

In my experience dwarf gouramis need to be treated carefully when keeping pairs, generally they are very big on territorial space, especially when theyve started to construct a bubble-nest, then you should have to consider than any fish irrelevant of species may be run off or attacked in an area of roughly 1-2 cubic feet near the nest.

In addition there does seem to be rank order even among the females,and females as well as rival males can be persecuted, and a breeding pair may both attack the lone female. So a single pair may be best in a small tank such as yours. I kept three breeding pairs in a 140 gallon tank, and just to give you a sense of the scale of colisa territoriality, those three pairs set nests at equal distances and policed the entire surface of the tank , even getting stroppy with corydoras who made occasional dashes to the surface.

Even then , one pair started to fail from stress,and had to be removed.

If you havent bought df's for a while is may be worth noting that there has been a great deal of dodgy breeding worldwide and getting hold of a normal non-inbred pair might be more difficult than it looks, for fish health i would avoid any colour variants from the normal and fish with unusually bloated looking stomachs, or unusually orutond shapes. Breeding for colour and shape typically doesnt seen to suit df's and it weakens the species rather as it does in guppies and platys , often meaning the fish die too soon, often after one breeding effort, or within one 3rd of the lifetime for a normal fish.

Also some breeders have bred df's with indian gouramies hoping to correct such deficiencies, and while this leads to a spectacular looking animal, with the indian.' size and the dwarfs' colouration , these animals too can be short lived, ofeten only living from 6 to 18 months.

Hope this helps. - Dom.

the ottos are a good choice, but water quality must be maintanied as they are slighyly more choosy about quality and oxygenation than labyrinth fish like gouramies, gouramies can persecutes inveratbrates too. ive had one that removed some legs and antennae from an amano shrimp but on the whole this is rare , so give them a go.


frankly tho, you will find the ottos pretty much keep the tank free from algae, and for general scavenging and forgetting rid of that hair algae, siamese flying foxes are a good choice, their moderate size and tough scales also means that the territoriality from the df's wil be largely ignored.Also since they tend to stay to the bottom of the tank they wont be getting in the way of your df's.

I think you would be fine with
2 DG's and a shoal of 6 neons in there.

Siamese Algae Eaters are a Schooling fish that
grow to about 6 inches and are far too large
for a 10g tank.
Stick with Ottos.


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ok.you got me a bit worried longhair.would only one male do ok?i was not planning on breeding them .

Yes, i male will be fine.


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