Dwarfs And My Livebearers

Danh

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Hello all,

Sorry to be a pain, can i keep dwarf gourami's in a 18 gallon (uk) with the following:

1 dalmation mollie
1 black mollie
5 guppies
2 panda corys.

The tank is soon to have its final few plants added making it heavily planted, and hopefully a cave will go in soon, therefore giving loads of hiding places. But even with hiding places will the gouramis be under any threat of aggression from the others?
I dont mind only keeping one male, however im confused as to if the follow the same rule as guppies 1 male to 2 female or if the can be kept individually. Also if needed i have a spare 6 gallon (uk) i could QT them in.

Thanks Dan.
 
hi,
i had no problem with a male dwarf i had and all my fish,
which inc, guppy, molly, platy, neons, pleco etc. sometimes he would see a fish off from his side of the tank, but i had lots of plants and places to hide. :good:
 
Thanks Donna, looks to me that i need to get the QT tank filled up and get some more plants and rocks before i get to the lfs with my jar filled of money labelled 'Fish money'.

Will dwarfs accept frozen daphnia and flakes eaisly?

Thanks
 
Well, since you have lots of positive comments, let me be the one to give you a negative response. All your fishes here need different water conditions, and keeping them together is asking for problems.

OK, starting with the mollies. Both of these need hard, alkaline water, perferably with some salt added (i.e., brackish water, with a specific gravity of 1.003 being ideal). Mollies can be kept in non-brackish water, but spend some time in the livebearer section and you'll see a LARGE number of people with molly problems. I'd guess about 50% of the mollies kept in freshwater end up getting either fungus, finrot, or "the shimmies". Mollies kept in brackish water are many times less likely to have these problems.

Guppies need hard, alkaline water. They also do well in brackish water (even salt water) but they certainly don't need salt in the water. Kept in anything other than hard, alkaline water they tend to be sickly.

Panda cories come from soft, acidic streams and rivers with plenty of water current and open spaces to swim in. They live in schools of hundreds of specimens. Two cories = two unhappy cories, and they should really be in a tank that allows you to keep at least four or five, and ideally more than that.

Dwarf gouramis come from soft, acidic ditches and streams with virtually no water current at all (as is typical for labyrinth fish generally, with a few notable exceptions). They do not like water current that is strong, and lack the body shape or swimming strength to survive in such conditions. Kept in the wrong water chemistry they are VERY prone to sickness, presumably because their immune system is compromised, and the now-recognised DGIV (dwarf gourami iridovirus) eventually kills a large number, perhaps the majority, of commercially bred specimens.

In short, your mollies could work with your guppies, but not the cories or the dwarf gourami. The guppies and cories could live together, at a neutral to slightly alkaline pH and moderate hardness, and guppies usually do well with a bit of water current. The cories and the dwarf gourami make a poor combination because they prefer totally different water movement levels. Cories would work best with tetras, danios, etc. The mollies will (trust me) eventually need treatment for diseases because of the absence of salt, and adding salt would stress the dwarf gourami. So those two are a bad combination. The guppies and dwarf gourami need different water chemistry, and while both might survive in hard, alkaline water, eventually your dwarf gourami will get sick and die. With dwarf gouramis NOTHING helps more than giving them the warm, soft, and acidic water conditions these fish need. Forcing them to live in anything else is usually fruitless.

I'd highly recommend buying an aquarium book that provides you with water chemistry requirements and other information, rather that just buying species "that look nice". Use it when you go shopping, and trust the science rather than your luck.

Cheers, Neale
 
Well, since you have lots of positive comments, let me be the one to give you a negative response. All your fishes here need different water conditions, and keeping them together is asking for problems.

OK, starting with the mollies. Both of these need hard, alkaline water, perferably with some salt added (i.e., brackish water, with a specific gravity of 1.003 being ideal). Mollies can be kept in non-brackish water, but spend some time in the livebearer section and you'll see a LARGE number of people with molly problems. I'd guess about 50% of the mollies kept in freshwater end up getting either fungus, finrot, or "the shimmies". Mollies kept in brackish water are many times less likely to have these problems.

Guppies need hard, alkaline water. They also do well in brackish water (even salt water) but they certainly don't need salt in the water. Kept in anything other than hard, alkaline water they tend to be sickly.

Panda cories come from soft, acidic streams and rivers with plenty of water current and open spaces to swim in. They live in schools of hundreds of specimens. Two cories = two unhappy cories, and they should really be in a tank that allows you to keep at least four or five, and ideally more than that.

Dwarf gouramis come from soft, acidic ditches and streams with virtually no water current at all (as is typical for labyrinth fish generally, with a few notable exceptions). They do not like water current that is strong, and lack the body shape or swimming strength to survive in such conditions. Kept in the wrong water chemistry they are VERY prone to sickness, presumably because their immune system is compromised, and the now-recognised DGIV (dwarf gourami iridovirus) eventually kills a large number, perhaps the majority, of commercially bred specimens.

In short, your mollies could work with your guppies, but not the cories or the dwarf gourami. The guppies and cories could live together, at a neutral to slightly alkaline pH and moderate hardness, and guppies usually do well with a bit of water current. The cories and the dwarf gourami make a poor combination because they prefer totally different water movement levels. Cories would work best with tetras, danios, etc. The mollies will (trust me) eventually need treatment for diseases because of the absence of salt, and adding salt would stress the dwarf gourami. So those two are a bad combination. The guppies and dwarf gourami need different water chemistry, and while both might survive in hard, alkaline water, eventually your dwarf gourami will get sick and die. With dwarf gouramis NOTHING helps more than giving them the warm, soft, and acidic water conditions these fish need. Forcing them to live in anything else is usually fruitless.

I'd highly recommend buying an aquarium book that provides you with water chemistry requirements and other information, rather that just buying species "that look nice". Use it when you go shopping, and trust the science rather than your luck.

Cheers, Neale

Hi Neale,

Dont mean to sound y or sarcastic with this question but if this is the case with all the fish needing different water qualities, how comes my LFS keeps the majority of fish in tanks that all have the same water supply and filter without any problems. The only time the use water from a different supply and filter is with the marine tanks. Even the discus are kept in the tanks supplied buy the same source.

Dan
 
Hello Dan,

The reason your LFS keeps fishes with all different water chemistry and environmental requirements together is simple: they don't intend to keep the fishes in their shop for more than a few weeks. Neon tetras for example will last weeks, months, even a year or two in hard, alkaline water. But they will live longer -- and will only breed -- in the right water. Stores also use a LOT of medication as well as things like UV sterlisation to keep diseases from spreading, things home aquarists don't tend to do. Stores can afford to lose a large pecentage of their neons or guppies to disease, yet still make a profit on the ones sold. To a certain extent, their business model is predicated around losing a certain number of fish. But an aquarist doesn't work that way, and if you have 10 neons and 3 of them die, you have a problem. A shop that loses 30% of its neons will still make a profit.

A few fish shops furthermore don't care at all, and treat the fish as nothing more than merchandise. The experiences of many on this board who have visited "big chain" pet stores reflects this most, but a lot of small stores are no better. Goldfish bowls, brackish water fish being sold as community tropicals, plecs being sold to people buying 10 gallon tanks, spiny eels being sold as "scavengers", and so on.

Fundamentally, the aquarist should be putting together the best water conditions for his fish. Failure to do so leads to problems. It's this that separates the experienced fishkeepers from the inexperienced ones. The inexperienced ones imagine that all "community fish" get along fish, and since the fish shop sells them, they must be safe together. The experienced aquarist knows this is codswallop, and researches the needs of each fish before purchase. Putting soft water fish in soft water means they live longer and breed more readily and have nicer colours. Diseases happen far less often. Likewise with hard water or brackish water fish. I gave the example of mollies above. Another example is glassfish. In hard or brackish water they will live and grow happily, it is true, but they are also prone to lymphocystis, a (relatively harmless) viral infection. In soft and acid water, which is what I keep mine in, lympho doesn't happen. Yet another example: kribensis. In hard, alkaline water they will breed, but your offspring will all be males. Keep them in softer water with a neutral pH, and you get equal numbers of baby boys and girls. Nothing beats giving fish the right conditions if you want the best from them, period.

Have a nice weekend!

Neale

Dont mean to sound y or sarcastic with this question but if this is the case with all the fish needing different water qualities, how comes my LFS keeps the majority of fish in tanks that all have the same water supply and filter without any problems. The only time the use water from a different supply and filter is with the marine tanks. Even the discus are kept in the tanks supplied buy the same source.
 
Hi Neale,

Glad you got here today because i was aiming on going and getting one tomorrow morning. Thanks for the heads up, although i will still go to the LFS to have a noisey.

Dan
 

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