Gouramis pecking

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Tuckerman821

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• Apr 21, 2023

• #1

I’ve recently bought three lavender gouramis for my 55 gallon tank. I’m pretty sure I have 1 male and 2 females, I’ll add pictures to hopefully get other opinions. The one I think is a male is pecking at and chasing the other two. I assume it’s just a natural pecking order and everything will eventually settle down just wanted more opinions
Thanks in advance

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Colin_T

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• Apr 21, 2023

• #2

they are highly territorial and don't always develop a pecking order, one fish sometimes kills the others. you need a heap of floating plants like water sprite to provide territories in the upper half of the tank where these fish naturally live.

 

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• Apr 22, 2023

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Colin_T said:

they are highly territorial and don't always develop a pecking order, one fish sometimes kills the others. you need a heap of floating plants like water sprite to provide territories in the upper half of the tank where these fish naturally live.

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I have a bunch of salvinia, just haven’t seen them around the top too much yet. I’m gonna keep an eye on them

 

GaryE

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• Apr 22, 2023

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Like @Colin_T , I've seen the pecking escalate, especially if there are two males. Lavender form gouramis can be aggressive. One of the counter-intuitive things I've read about them is they often are found in quick moving water. We tend to think of gouramis as swamp fish. Maybe raising the water flow would help - it does with Cichlids and a few other "pickers".

 

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• Apr 22, 2023

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GaryE said:

Maybe raising the water flow would help

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What is something you’d suggest to up water movement. I currently have an oase Thermo cycling the tank around 5 times an hour, 250 gph canister filter. Would a power head be the play, or would a more powerful filter be better?

 

GaryE

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• Apr 22, 2023

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Remember, I said "maybe". I have never tried this with gouramis, just with Cichlids. But a powerhead might help.

 

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• Apr 22, 2023

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@GaryE
I know there is no definite solution besides removing fish, just looking for possible way to maybe help the situation.