Pygmy Gourmais

[darenshan54]

I'm planning to get one to deal with my snail problem, and cause they're awesome. I was just wondering do this have problems with other gourmais? I have a pearl gourmais in my tank as well.

 

[Essjay]

Do you mean Trichopsis pumila, also known as sparkling gourami? I've never come across anything saying they eat snails. They are also normally kept in groups.
The thing that would worry me most is that they are very small, and I'm not sure about keeping them with a pearl gourami. Having said that, I've never tried so I can't say for sure it would be a bad idea having both in the same tank.

 

[darenshan54]

Do you mean Trichopsis pumila, also known as sparkling gourami? I've never come across anything saying they eat snails. They are also normally kept in groups.
The thing that would worry me most is that they are very small, and I'm not sure about keeping them with a pearl gourami. Having said that, I've never tried so I can't say for sure it would be a bad idea having both in the same tank.

http/www.aquaticcommunity.com/gourami/sparkling.php

"they are known to appreciate tropical flake food, algae flakes, Tubifex, live brine shrimp and live snails."

i can't really fit a clown loach in my tank.. unless there are some small variation of snail eating loaches between 2-5 inches.

 

[Essjay]

That's the first thing I've come across saying they eat snails.

Dwarf chain loaches (Yasuhikotakia sidthimunki, old name Botia sidthimunki) eat small snails and grow to 2 inches long. They prefer to be in shoals as do almost all loaches. I have some and I can recommend them.
Most of the botine loaches will eat snails, all you have to be careful with is how big they get. For instance zebra loaches (Botia striata) grow to about 8cm/3 inches. There are others too.

 

[GreenEyedTerror]

Pygmy gouramis are very very small, i keep 3 with a pair of honey gouramis and they get along fine. As to if they eat snails, im not sure. i keep malasian trumpet snails in my tank and i have never seen the gouramis eating them, but then again i have a lot of substrate and i barely ever see my snails at all. With their size i would think that they might be able to eat the snail eggs, or recently hatched snails. they often pick things off my plants, so its not impossible.

i forgot to add that they may not do well with the larger gouramis, honeys are of comparable size, while trichogasters may cause harm to pygmys

 

[Gourami123]

they do eat snails but not very often most of the time they just ignore them
when i had a snail outbreak in my pygmys tank they ate about 4 out 50 what was in there

clown loaches are the best fish for the problem but grow to big as you said so i would reccomend hiring them of a friend lol.

 

[tgo]

my sparkling gouramis are always nipping my zebra snails, to the point that i think they may have contributed to the recent death of one of them. They slowly inch their way towards the head of the snail when the snail is exposed and then dart out and nip hard. One of them did the same thing to a sleeping ghost shrimp and injured it very badly, it was very starnge to see this happen as the shrimp sort of just spun upside down and twisted around, and then landed awkwardly. I also think they are responsible for a slightly torn tail fin of one of the panda cories, maybe I'll move the sparkling gourami in with the lemon tetras and give them some more room. Good luck with them, they really are very neat fish IMO I just think they have the potential to be aggressive.