Has Anyone Ever Successfully Kept Dwarf Gouramis?

[maddie]

Hey all - bit of a survey here, thought this was the best place as this forum seems to have the most traffic.

Over in the Gourami/Anabantoid forum there's been a LOT of members with problems with their dwarfs - typically they develop ulcers, then die shortly thereafter. Usually we've only had these dwarfs a few months, if that. According to sylvia - this is a common problem with dwarfs - who are prone to developing a particular 'dwarf gourami disease' if they are already not a carrier. In the last fortnight or so alone, there has been four of us - myself, Jozlyn, Biulu, and Colonel Mustard - and other have come out saying they've had the same thing happen to previous dwarfs in the past (Jozlyn's on her second, cuticom, and Nemo) and I'm sure there are others out there too. If anyone's interested in more info - check out our threads in that forum. *Edit* we've got another one with ulcers - ashlea87.
Throughout the threads we were posting on sylvia noticed a few of us were Australians - she thought this might be important as she recalled a fishkeeping magazine had done an article on dwarf gourami disease on fishes in Australian shops. That there might be something in the fish stocks in Australia.

One of my main points of posting this topic is to help me make a decision as to whether it is worth trying with dwarfs again - or to save myself the (inevitable?) heartache and go with another species (considering pearls). I do really love the dwarfs, I think they're beautiful, so now I ask you all : -

- Have you ever successfully kept dwarf gouramis for an extended period of time? How long? In particular, have any Aussies done so?

- What part of the world are you from?

- Also, has anyone else had the same unfortunate experiences with dwarfs as I've outlined above?

This will help me decide whether to try to keep dwarfs again, so please respond. It might be interesting to see if any problem areas stand out.
Thanks in advance

 

[maddie]

Hi. Good to be able to contact another Aussie. I'm from Mackay and love my Dwarf's. I have 2 female and 1 male at present .
One pair is breeding at the moment and it is awsome watching it all happen they realy do have it down pat .
This is my first attempt and if you can help me with some advice I'll really appreciate it.
When do I remove the female from the male and the eggs ? or do I leave her in with him? or remove them both ?
He had just started to become a little agressive towards her during the day but at night has only one thing on his mind, the poor girl is totally confused and doesn't know what to do.
Could you also tell me if liquid fry is ok to feed the bubs if I get any. I have tried cultivating some fry food with vegetable breakdown but not having much success. It just turns into one putrid mess.
You also mentioned ulcers - one of mine has also got one on her side (not the one breeding) She may have got it in the general tank when the male was starting to get toeie and he was showing her some interest. but she seemed ok when I purchased her
about a month ago. All our fish stock comes from just North of Brisbane and to actually get a female is really rare as they are not very attractive and not easy to sell unless for breeding purposes. We have to request them and maybe wait months for them.
Please reply ASAP as I don't know what I should be doing. I have looked up brouser sites but have not found anything to help me.
Regards,
Madeleine

 

[SouthernCross]

I honestly don't think I've seen a more inappropriately placed post on a thread before!
You're asking for advice about breeding dwarf gouramis in a thread where most of us have said ours died, they suck, and we don't keep them anymore...!!!
So I'm kinda wondering why you posted here, in a thread several months old nonetheless, I am failing to see your logic!

But I don't want to make you feel bad, so I'll try to help you out anyway

I don't have dwarfs anymore for the obvious reasons, and I never tried to breed them either, so I can't provide you with information personally, but I had a poke around and someones posted a little thread on gouramis with some stuff about breeding that seems like it might answer some of your questions - link below:

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showto...t=0&start=0

Have a look at the other pinned topics in the Gourami and Anabantoid forum - there's one just for dwarf gouramis (and in particular their diseases) too. The ulcer your fish has probably doesn't bode well to be honest - do a forum search for dwarf gourami (or follow some of the links in this thread) to learn a bit more.

Good luck! It's always nice to see some more Aussies.

 

[borissimo]

A few years ago I had a few red honey dwarf gouramis and a few yellow ones and lost them all one by one.

I don't what was wrong with them (I blamed my own bad husbandry, though I did try and keep the tank clean) except for one, which had obvious dropsy.

I had the same problem with neon tetras, though I now have seven penguin tetras and they have all been healthy since I bought them a few months ago.

 

[-germ-]

Isn't life expectency for dwarves and honeys only a couple of years at best anyway, or did i hear wrong...
3 wild (probably only colouration) honeys; perfect health
2 thick lips; obese and your typical gourami parasite issues, but unstressed and nothing serious
1 female dwarf.... the other died recently, no damage or ulcer, i put it down to old age

 

[maddie]

Gee you make people feel welcome !.I am new to this forum and I'm sorry if you think it was inappropriate but I thought this was the area to ask questions and get support. I was wrong obviously.
Wether the information was one day or one year old should not matter, it is still providing information that may have helped me with my enquiry. I thought the experience (good or bad) of others may have pointed me in the right direction.

 

[-germ-]

Hi. Good to be able to contact another Aussie. I'm from Mackay and love my Dwarf's. I have 2 female and 1 male at present .
One pair is breeding at the moment and it is awsome watching it all happen they realy do have it down pat .
This is my first attempt and if you can help me with some advice I'll really appreciate it.
When do I remove the female from the male and the eggs ? or do I leave her in with him? or remove them both ?
He had just started to become a little agressive towards her during the day but at night has only one thing on his mind, the poor girl is totally confused and doesn't know what to do.
Could you also tell me if liquid fry is ok to feed the bubs if I get any. I have tried cultivating some fry food with vegetable breakdown but not having much success. It just turns into one putrid mess.
You also mentioned ulcers - one of mine has also got one on her side (not the one breeding) She may have got it in the general tank when the male was starting to get toeie and he was showing her some interest. but she seemed ok when I purchased her
about a month ago. All our fish stock comes from just North of Brisbane and to actually get a female is really rare as they are not very attractive and not easy to sell unless for breeding purposes. We have to request them and maybe wait months for them.
Please reply ASAP as I don't know what I should be doing. I have looked up brouser sites but have not found anything to help me.
Regards,
Madeleine

Not getting involved....
Hospital tank the ulcered gourami, just in case......
Remove the female immediately after spawning and the male once the fry become free swimming.
Make sure the air above your tank isn't overheated by your lights, apparently it commonly damages their labyrinth organ.
I'm not sure about liquifry but i've heard (from an ancient book; Jans Joaquim Richter anyone?) that boiled egg forced through a fine mesh sieve is suitable, double check this though, please!
Don't worry, as is to be expexcted (<---too much beer ) people can get protective over fishy ideals, you just posted in the wrong thread is all, try the anabantoid section...
Peas!




Oh, where is Sylvia?
Not seen her in ages, hope she hasn't given up! The lady deserves endless respect for all the effort she put into the Gourami element of this forum....
La-lalalala-LAaa
Pwease don't shout at me!!!

 

[Peacelover]

I had one male Dwarf and one male Pearl in my community tank and they just beat each other up terribly, I read that they were both peaceful community fish, I don't think I will keep two male Gourami's of any breed together again, I really liked my male Dwarf and had kept one years ago successfully but he badly hurt his lips beating up the Pearl and ended up getting a type of fungus on his lips, I took him out and treated him in my hospital tank but he ended up dieing a couple of days later.
Peacelover.

 

[tropicalgirl2007]

No luck, I have had 6 and they are all died within 2 months!!!

 

[-germ-]

No luck, I have had 6 and they are all died within 2 months!!!

Thats bad
Do you know what they died of? Or the symptoms they had?
What tank set up did you have....

 

[SouthernCross]

Gee you make people feel welcome !.I am new to this forum and I'm sorry if you think it was inappropriate but I thought this was the area to ask questions and get support. I was wrong obviously.
Wether the information was one day or one year old should not matter, it is still providing information that may have helped me with my enquiry. I thought the experience (good or bad) of others may have pointed me in the right direction.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I guess you just failed to see the irony in terms of the subject matter in this thread - or maybe I just have a weird sense of humour. Anyway!

I don't know if you read beyond the first four lines of my reply above or not - but I hope the information I did provide you with in my attempts to point you in the right direction (even if you seem to think I wasn't doing this) proved to be of some assistance.

Don't be afraid of starting your own topics/threads too if you can't find one that's already on your topic of interest. As I mentioned above - the gourami/anabantoid forum has loads of threads on dwarf gouramis (the search function is super handy for narrowing things down to your interest), and there especially might be a good place to make a thread about your specific gourami query. I tend to find new threads tend to generate more interest too...

There, I've offered some more help, hopefully you won't bite my head off this time.

P.S., germ, I miss Sylvia too! Does anyone know where she went?

 

[Biulu]

I have 3 dwarf gouramis, I have had them all for around 8 months now. One did get an ulcer, and I have him in a hospital tank with medicated foods. I think this ulcer was caused by stress as he was the lowest in the picking hierarchy. My other 2 are fine (incidental quarreling over territory) and are lively.

I am based in Southern Mexico, and just went to my favourite aquarium shop in Mexico city. Among others I asked them about dwarfs, and they said they had not noticed (or gotten complaints) about specific sicknesses in dwarfs. They did remark though that dwarfs are less hardy than e.g. the chunas, due to stress. For that reason, they only keep a limited number of dwarfs in their display tanks, and try to avoid overstocking.

I wonder whether these practices of overstocking these fish in (bare) fishtanks have a particular effect on the dwarfs in areas where the virus is not known to be so pronounced? During this time they might develop the sickness, and this cannot be reversed once you've purchased and housed the fish in better circumstances.

 

[Esfa]

i have had mine for a year =]

Still alive and swimming

 

[kym_sharpe_3]

I have two honeys both male.and i have had them three months. no problems. apart from one which got attacked by the other male and i brought him back and now he is tiptop. no sign on ulcers *touch wood* one of the males has colored up amazingly brown tummy bright yellow top fin and black face and under his tummy. amazing! the other male is light colored and sometimes shows his colors but then the other male shows his manness! and he goes back down to his paler colour!