Mulitple gouramis?

[FishOwner]

Hey everyone!

I've been keeping fish for quite some time but I haven't put a lot of time in with gouramis. I'm wondering if it's even possible to keep more than one species of gourami in a tank...it's a 75g btw. I bought myself a gold gourami the other day and wow what a nice fish! Thinking about getting a three spot next what do you think?

Oh and the other fish are listed in my sig....

[Lab_Rat]

The gold is a color variant of the 3 spot. I'd aim for a trio of them (1m/2f) and you could do any of the Trichogaster trichopterus color variants (3 spot, blue, gold, lavender, platinum, opaline).

[VoidParadigm]

Golds are Three-Spots! (Yes, I know most of them have two. Hehe. It's a defect of the golden color variant.)

If you're doing a community of them try to only get females. This isn't a species like a livebearer, where the male will just chase around the females all day, la-de-da, only a risk of over-tiring. This species creates bubble "nests" for their eggs, and the males can kill the females at any point in the spawning process. He can kill her accidentally when trying to get her to co-operate with releasing eggs (by flipping her upside down), he may kill her for being too close to his territory, he may kill her for trying to eat the eggs (which the females will do without a second glance - food is food in their eyes, no motherly instincts there! Haha.) Not to mention that most males will eat their own fry, and kill/injure/chase any other species of fish that tries to get at their bubble-nest.

Either that, or you'll have to be very diligent about destroying any nests he tries to create.

Not to mention, Gouramis are very much so individuals - especially the more unpredictable three-spots. While one fish may be a great community fish, another of the same size/age/color/spawn can be a complete witch with a tendancy to kill anything that moves. This includes females - the males are not alone subject to territory issues and random "mood" swings.

In that size tank I'd recommend a maximum of just two more Three-Spots.

[FishOwner]

Thanks guys!!

Hmmmm...well I'm no expert but I do believe I have a male. I also know that I don't want to breed them and I don't want to encourage them to do so. I don't have the time or inclination right now to care for fry. So as you can imagine I'm leery of adding any females.
So there is no way you could add a completely different species like a dwarf or a pearl to this tank?
Well no matter what he is a beautiful fish and he is getting along with the other fish so that's good.

[VoidParadigm]

Male three-spots do much better alone, as a proud centerpiece fish.

If you want more fish I'd really just suggest upping your Neon numbers. They're really pretty when in huge schools.

While it's not impossible to mix Gourami species, they'll all be competing for the same territory, so it could turn out dangerous.

[FishOwner]

Thanks Void! I'm not into conflict in the tank (used to keep all kinds of cichlids been there done that) all I want is a nice peaceful beautiful tank to relax with you know? So the gold is it which is fine and yeah I've been meaning to get more neons but the only ones I've seen lately didn't look so good. Looked like some of them had that 'neon disease' and I don't want to introduce that into my tank.