Honey Gourami + tank

So it has been two weeks since adding the new "pair" of honey gourami to the tank, they are doing well and deserve their own journal.
Tank dimensions are 60x30x30cm. It is super low tech, sponge filter, an ikea clip on lamp with one bulb above the tank (+some light from a nearby window) and a heater set to 25C with a glass cover and large gap for the humid air to be at a stable temperature
Due to low light, low demand plants, anubias, java fern, naias, stargrass, some salvinia.

This tank houses my tylomelania snails, it may be a bit small for them, but I feed well and basically the whole substrate is opened, only few rooted plants, the rest is a roaming space for them. I add eggshells and cuttlebone for their calcium needs, feed mineral supplements and they breed, so it seems it is working. There are plenty oak leaves and alder cones that I keep adding and I feed the snails every other day.

I was looking for a fish that would work with the snails the best and settled on the honey gouramis, as they will appreciate the temp spikes this tank may have in summer (due to its window proximity), they inhabit the upper part of the tank, they are not aggressive and their behavior is just adorable.

They seem to have divided the tank, the larger, suspected female, hangs in the front near the open area, while the suspected male hangs near the sponge filter and in the background. They do not interact that much, sometimes they will go take a look, feel each other out, chase each other, sometimes they just hang.

I wonder at what time can I say it is working between them or not working, and how to determine if the fish are too shy from being without other dither fish. At this moment one of them is not shy at all, the other one is in the back, so less visible. They dont glass surf, they dont spend time hiding or under covers, they feed well and they utilize the whole tank. If you have any tips for me, I would appreciate them.

I lost both gourami. One after 5 weeks, one after 6,5 weeks since purchase. Both the same way, no idea what happened. Normal eating, normal behavior, normal color, then suddenly boom, lying on the substrate, bent spine ( to C shape to the side, not upside down), resting on plants, substrate, dead within 12 hours from noticicng this. No idea if cold air or something, the tank is 25 degrees, room is 22 so could have been it. Or something from the asian supplier. No clue. I will miss them but this was the only shop selling them tha tI found in here, so not going to risk again. Need to figure out what else to keep that will work with the tylomelania. I will also add some baking soda or sulawesi minerals to helpt he snails with the ph

Beastije said:

I lost both gourami. One after 5 weeks, one after 6,5 weeks since purchase. Both the same way, no idea what happened. Normal eating, normal behavior, normal color, then suddenly boom, lying on the substrate, bent spine ( to C shape to the side, not upside down), resting on plants, substrate, dead within 12 hours from noticicng this. No idea if cold air or something, the tank is 25 degrees, room is 22 so could have been it. Or something from the asian supplier. No clue. I will miss them but this was the only shop selling them tha tI found in here, so not going to risk again. Need to figure out what else to keep that will work with the tylomelania. I will also add some baking soda or sulawesi minerals to helpt he snails with the ph

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What were your tank parameters? Bent spine disease can be cause by a few things like bad water parameters, disease, and bad genetics. Considering you said you saw no other symptoms, and if your water is good, my only two theories is they had some underlying disease such as something neurological, or they also look quite young, and considering that honey gouramis are breed quite a lot, you could have just got a unfortunate pair that had bad genetics and didn’t show till a few weeks after you got them.

That is my opinion too, because as a water quality show I added a bunch of 10 embers from my other tank after the first gourami passed. I do a 10% water change every few days just to make sure water quality is ok. All the embers are a-ok, the gourami died with the exact same symptomps as the first one. I guess it was bred in asia and had some issue. I would love to buy them local, but noone has them, noone sells them and noone breeds them here. No idea why...

I should rename the topic, since the tank is the same, the snails are the same but the fish are not. After not having luck with the honey gouramis, I used this tank to breed white cloud minnows and then bought a group of pseudomugil luminatus. They were adult, so I got 5 males, 5 females. I have had them since August and at this moment I have around three fry that are 3-5mm large and colored like adults and several ones that are just few mm and their most defining feature is the blue eye that can be seen from so far away.
The adults do not pay them any attention, but I feed heavily with live bbs, microworms, frozen cyclops, first bite, paramecium,...
I managed to make few video


I absolutely love the fish. They are interesting, active, inquisitive. The fry now consider me a food source, so when I lean to check the tank, they swim towards the glass. They work well with the snails, given I have 13 rabbits in there, two adults, rest are my babies and some are very fresh.
Since I have had the luminatus and the whiteclouds, tetras are now such a boring fish