What are your experiences/takes on honey gouramis?

While I was looking for fish to add to my 10gal a few days back, Honey Gouramis were mentioned quite a few times. I looked pass it as I already have better fish options for my tank.

But I thought it would be appropriate to get my questions out here just for the sake of learning more about the fish, get to know what I'm looking at, and clearing up confusions I had along the way.


I'd like to start with the informations regarding their tank size. I've read that they can be kept in tanks as little as 5g, though personally I thought that would be a bit inhumane?

But would a 10-20g be any better? This just led me to some sort of dilemma.
The result regarding that question was; Yes, you CAN keep a solo Honey in those tank sizes as long as there are smaller, peaceful dither tank mates like Chili Rasboras, Otocinclus, Ember tetras, etc.
I could not find anything talking about a species-only tank with one gourami, so that brought me to; You should keep a pair of honeys in a 20 gal as they're social.

Then that led me to a different answer, stating that Honeys should be kept in group of 6, like sparklers or other gouramis. But that would be virtually impossible to achieve with only a 10-20g so that would mean that the ideal tank size for honeys are 30-40g? So they would be in the same sense to samurais and chocolate gouramis, where they need to have group members. But then would that make the whole belief that Honeys are "nano fish" for small to medium tanks false?
Or is it like a two way thing? Where both are fine and would make the fish comfortable anyway? Or is one worse or better than the other?

I needed more info to be sure which of the two arguments is more right, so I checked a few forums, reddit, some facebook groups and the results were still mixed because everyone had different experiences with them.

Some kept them alone with small shoalers and dithers, and happened to be "fine". Then another would argue that they SHOULD keep them in groups.

So some DID keep them in groups, and were also "fine", but then another would also argue that the honeys will bully the lesser ones, and it just keeps going back and forth like that.

My theory is that some people accidentally kept thick-lipped gouramis which are often confused as honey gouramis, resulting in different results and experiences from people? Or websites and other sources of info that encouraged wonky practice like Dwarf Gouramis in 10 gal somehow got in the way?

I would love to hear the take of anyone who has lots of experience regarding honeys, or gouramis in general? Just to clear up any confusion.
Many thanks for hearing me out on this topic!

Honey gouramis (aka honey dwarf gouramis) are much more territorial than chocolate/ samurai gouramis, which do need to be kept in groups. A pair of honey gouramis can live in a tank that is 18 inches long (24+ inches is better), but they need a big tank (4 foot plus) if you want to keep a group of them because the males can be really nasty for a small fish. Even in an 18 inch tank, males have been known to kill females after breeding.

As a general rule they are peaceful but when breeding, the males will set up a territory and defend it. And like most male labyrinth fishes defending territory, it's not always nice and peaceful. Outside the breeding season and they are lovely fish but get a mature male defending his bubblenest with eggs or fry, and you don't want much if anything else in the tank with him unless it's a good size tank.

You can keep honey gouramis on their own but the females do like company. Most people go for a pr (1 male & 1 female).

Colin_T said:

Honey gouramis (aka honey dwarf gouramis) are much more territorial than chocolate/ samurai gouramis, which do need to be kept in groups. A pair of honey gouramis can live in a tank that is 18 inches long (24+ inches is better), but they need a big tank (4 foot plus) if you want to keep a group of them because the males can be really nasty for a small fish. Even in an 18 inch tank, males have been known to kill females after breeding.

As a general rule they are peaceful but when breeding, the males will set up a territory and defend it. And like most male labyrinth fishes defending territory, it's not always nice and peaceful. Outside the breeding season and they are lovely fish but get a mature male defending his bubblenest with eggs or fry, and you don't want much if anything else in the tank with him unless it's a good size tank.

You can keep honey gouramis on their own but the females do like company. Most people go for a pr (1 male & 1 female).

Click to expand...

That's a logical take, I guess aggression, a little bit of fighting, peaceful, and other behaviors from any fish species will always be there and unavoidable when it comes to breeding, territory, or other.