Three very violent kissing gouramis

[jakefishman]

Hi everyone. I have a 30 gallon tank with three kissing gouramis in excellent health. Also in the tank are 3 kuhli loaches, 1 beautiful beta, 2 swords who've had babies twice in the last three months. So now there are two chunky good lookin' babies from the first batch , and about seven from the second batch that are tiny but flourishing. Needless to say the tank is getting a bit crowded; it also has lots of live plants and I feed a lot of (frozen) treats (shrimp, worms). Going to move them all into a larger tank in six weeks, but over the last 3 months the gouramis have become increasingly violent. They fight each other ALL the time. The beta was formerly the king of this tank -- but even he hides at times from the aggressive g's. They only fight each other, but they spin around the tank knocking into everyone. First I thought it was because of the babies (they obviously ate some of the very small ones) but now they don't even look at the babes. Just each other with lips flaring and fins raised. They "killed" the third sword (other mother) when she was pregnant by stressing her out. Any help? Every website says k.g. are peaceful. Not these! Thanks for any help.

 

[Nina7777]

I have to disagree. 3 kissing guoramis in a 30 gallon IMO is a big no no.

Unfortunately it also sounds like you have three males. I would try to trade in 2 of them for some more peaceful fish. Besides each one can reah up to 10 inches. You would need a very very large tank if you were to keep all three.

 

[Inchworm]

Hi jakefishman

Welcome to the forum.

Nina7777 is right. Kissing gouramis can get very large and are not appropriate fish to keep with the others in your community.

It's never a good idea to keep bettas and gouramis together, even small gouramis. They both occupy the same space at the top of the tank and are both capable of becoming aggressive. If you wish to keep the betta happily in that tank, you might have to consider replacing the large kissers with smaller, more sedate fish. Or, perhaps you might want to leave the betta in that tank when you move the gouramis to the larger one. You could then stock it with fish that get along well with bettas such as glowlight tetras, cory cats, the kuhli loaches, etc.

 

[jakefishman]

Thank you both so much. This is very helpful and I'll never listen to another fish dealer again. Moving those gouramis asap.

 

[Nina7777]

Your very welcome! and Good Luck. Keep us updated!