Honeys are very peaceful, will do well in a trio with 1 male and 2 females.
Dwarf are prone to health issues and usually don't live longer than 6 months, males super aggressive towards one another and depending on your area females can be impossible to find. So best to stick with a single fish unless you can 100% say its a female (plain silver)
Thick lipped are decent, can be a little aggressive, but not overly bad. Best in a trio. Often hybridized with honeys to create "sunset" honeys or red honeys.
Pearl gourami are larger, among the most peaceful group.
Three spot are among the most aggressive. Also called opaline gourami.
Sparkling gouramis are super tiny, like neon tetra sized. Care must be taken they don't get eaten. Small, but very betta like and can be very fierce.
Theres other species, but these are the more commonly kept ones. Some though are specialized and can't be kept without RO water and even your water is way too hard for those (so I didn't list them above).
All gouramis dislike fast flowing water, so keep filtration in mind. Many love dense planting and feel more secure with a lot of plants. They can be a little shy and reclusive, but if there is a lot of plants, especially floating cover, they will come out a lot and theyre really interesting to watch. They use their pelvic fin threads as feelers and its neat to watch them poke each other and other fish and things with them as if trying to figure them out.
I keep a hybrid dwarfxhoney male, he outlived my female dwarf who passed of dwarf gourami disease. I may eventually get him a honey gourami second wife though.
I also keep Sparkling gouramis and theyre interesting how they interact but can be very feisty with one another, more so when spawning. Ive got a breeding pair and the way they interact together is neat to see. But they're harder to sex than other gouramis and I find with them its important as males will fight so a larger tank would work out better to have a mixed group provided theres more females around.
