When in rome.... (Pearl Gourami)

[DrNic]

I've kept pearl gouramis in various tanks for years. They are some of my favorite fish. My current gourami has recently surprised me when I added comets into her tank. It's kind of a long story but for some time she was the only fish in the tank and eventually I added in some orange comets. Within a few days I noticed her colors starting to change. Sure enough after about 3 weeks she picked up a bright orange streak on her bottom fins almost identical to the color on the comets! I've never seen anything like this in my previous pearl gouramis. Like they say, when in rome... :hmm3grin2orange:
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[Red]

you know you cant have goldfish in with tropical fish. :rolling: just kidding, that is a nice looking gourami and that is some nice color on the bottom.

[DrNic]

Yeah, shes one of the heartiest fish I think I've ever kept. She's a total survivor. Her story is epic, I honestly don't know how she is still here.

She was one of only 3 fish out of more than 75 total that survived a city water contamination problem that I wasn't aware of during a water change a little over a year ago. Then she jumped out of a 29G tank that was on the floor when our friends dog came by to visit and was almost a snack for the dog. I literally took her out of the dogs mouth. Finally, most recently, she survived living in water with a pH of 4.5 for more than 3 months showing no signs of problems before I realized there was a water problem and figured out how to fix it!

Now she's living with some comets and cats in a BIG tank that she seems to really like. It's funny to watch the comets school around with her. Sometimes she leads, sometimes they do. I'm hoping to grab a photo soon.

[rothenb1]

City water contamination, water with a pH of 4.5? Hearing that, along with another Massachusetts-based member's posts saying his water has a pH of 8.6... I think there's something going on with the water supply in Massachusetts....

[Taurus]

I had the same thoughts ^.

She's a beauty Nic. Pearls are such beautiful, graceful fish.

[DrNic]

City water contamination, water with a pH of 4.5? Hearing that, along with another Massachusetts-based member's posts saying his water has a pH of 8.6... I think there's something going on with the water supply in Massachusetts....
Yeah the water can be temperamental sometimes. From time to time a water main will break and we will end up with brown water and be put on a boil order for a day or two. It just happened that I was changing my water when this happened and didn't know until afterward. The bacteria that got into the tanks killed most of the fish. As for the pH, I don't think that's the city water directly. The tap comes out here at 7.2, but for some reason in the tank the water was dipping really low. I'm not sure if it was from the river rocks, the bad circulation or something else. As soon as I got the KH up with coral the pH balanced out.

[dnphillips08]

What a beautiful gourami! You got to love tap water, we had yellow tap water at one of my old houses. Man oh man did it do a wonder on our dogs' stomachs and ours. I only realized it was yellow once our toilet water was constantly yellow. Luckily I didn't have any tanks at that point.