| Temperament: | Territorial; This is an aggressive species among gourami's, especially with their own kind, males may fight persistantly to exhaustion and major jaw damage. Their famed kissing is in actual fact no way cute, or actually kissing, it is a most serious battle of liplocking identical to the fighting practiced by so many cichlids, and over a period of days or weeks , if the combatants are not seperated it can lead the the death if at least one of them. Gouramis with broken or torn jaws will be unable to eat and will consequently die. A hyperstimulated male may not limit its aggression to other males, and could disrupt a small community tank by chasing and gnawing on other fish.
Kissing gouramies are not particularly well equipped to cause bite damage on other species, but their persistant aggression and multiple attemps to attack may cause delicate fish to wane, and stimulate other aggressive species to fight.
In addition to sexual territoriality and competition , kissing gouramis will also fight to protect a feeding territory. This species is an algae eater and micropredator specialising in aufwuchs, and each specimen may choose to defend as many surfaces as feeding grounds that it can successfully police, and that means an aggressive specimen may wish to victimise other fish within an area of up to three feet.
Overall their personality can be variable, some peaceful, others truly aggressive, and in the authors opinion they are oversold as suitable for community. Many end up in species tanks with a compatible mate out of necessity, or moved to midsize cichlid communities in larger bodies of water where they represent a less significant danger to other fish. They are often stimulated into aggression by the presence of other gourami species, especially if the other species happen to be breeding. From the outset, it is probably wiser to include them in communities where they are actually one of the smaller species present.
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