Chocolate Gourami

[GaspingGurami]

I have a Choc Gourami that has lost its stripes. It now looks like it has marbled patterns instead of its original brown and bronze stripes.Actually it now looks like it is mouldy or it's lost its scales.

It is still the most aggressive of the 4, and has a good appetite. I read somewhere that cool temperatures will cause this. If that is the case, why are the other 3 unaffected? anyway, I have raised the temperature to 27 degrees, but not much help. This morning, It liiks like its fins are now clamped.

What is up with it? Is it sick? If so, what should I do to treat it?

I have it in a heavily planted tank so it's probably difficult to catch it out for treatment if needed.

Please advise, thanks.

[benny]

Hi Lawrence,

Sounds like stress coloration. These fellas are pretty tempremental creatures and was notoriously hard to keep alive in the earlier days of it's introduction. While being a good community citizen, it's actually pretty quarralsome amongst themselves.

In general, I find that they need low water circulation (almost still water), low pH and lots of hiding space. Did you provide a comfortable environment for them? Clamp fins are a sure sign of stress and they are prone to white spots when there are large temperature flucuations.

Any other signs of external damages?

Cheers,

[GaspingGurami]

Thanks for answering Benny.

Stress colouration eh? Then I guess it's a poor idea of mine to put them in my high lighting nano tank. There's low pH from CO2, and a dense jungle of plants. But circulation is high as I needed to get the CO2 to all parts of this dense jungle, (I'm running an Eheim 2228 in a tank 20L volume), and weekly 50% water changes with daily liquid fertilisation. Temperature is kept constant by chiller, there's no visible injury nor damage that I can see other than whatever little injury their constant flaring, does to each other.

Would this be considered too much variability in their environment for their liking?

They are certainly quarrelsome only amongst themselves. But would it be a viable idea to move them to my shrimp tank? (also densely planted with high current flow, but without the waterchanges and dosing frequency). Or do you think a piece of sea almond leaf to release tannin into the water do it good?

[stormhawk]

They will definitely love the addition of a piece of sea almond leaf. I keep mine in near neutral to slightly alkaline conditions and they're still doing fine.

[whoosh]

I have recently introduced 3 pcs of chocolate gourami to a comm tank, mostly tetra species. When comes to feeding time, the choc gourami is too slow to get their share. Would appreciate some advise here to overcome this problem.

Also heard that choc gourami would prefer live food, anyone has successfully introduce them to pellets?

Thanks!

[stormhawk]

They will only take live or frozen foods as per my own experience. Use only live foods for chocolate gouramis if possible. They seldom adapt to pellet or flake foods.

[mozesyap]

Mine seems to like the tiny tetra pellets, they loved to pick those off the floor or the leaves. But of coz they enjoy frozen / live food more.

I had some problem with their aggression towards each other when I had only 3 of them.
It was rather okay at first or so I thought but later on the smallest one seems to be suffering a lot of abuse. It has discolouration etc, and died soon after. I would agree with comments from past threads: try to have at least 5 to create a pecking order.

Provide lots of shade for them, they loved hiding under the salvania that i had.

Wonder how they are now... my bros got them.. think he had probably killed them lol...

[whoosh]

Thanks guys,

Everytime I feed the fishes, the other fishes gets to the food first. Guess the choc gouramis are just not fast enough. A little concern they might die of hunger eventually.... will just wait and see.

[GaspingGurami]

Mine took pellet from the first day I brought them home from the LFS. (Those tiny red types).

For the first few days, they's only pick those slowly sinking pellets, and ignore those that are floating and those that have landed to the gravel.

Now, they compete with the best of them all at the surface.

I believe having dither fishes will help them take to pellet faster.

[|squee|]

If I'm not wrong I think they don't like the high current in your tank? I have the impression they come from slow-moving streams/bodies of water in the wild. Budak should comment!

[Ah_ZhaN]

Apologise to GaspingGurami for stealing your thread.

I have recently introduced 3 pcs of chocolate gourami to a comm tank, mostly tetra species. When comes to feeding time, the choc gourami is too slow to get their share. Would appreciate some advise here to overcome this problem.

Also heard that choc gourami would prefer live food, anyone has successfully introduce them to pellets?

Thanks!

Hi guys, I do keep 5 pieces of dwarf chocolate gouramis...however 1 died few weeks ago(Temp stress I think). Initially they are very stubborn abt eating live food, yet their mouth is so small that they can only swallow 1 tubifex worm at a time, and a few TW is enuff to satisfied their appetite already. (you can imagine how freaking long they took to consume all $1 worth of TW).

Nevertheless, I follow Azmi's advice by feeding those sinking tablet(meant for corys) & they very soon start to feed on those after 1-2 day of starvation. Till now they are always on alert to watch out for the sinking tablet(1/4 of the tablet every feeding cos their appetite really very small) & are not shy abt feeding in front of me.
Bro GaspingGurami, you can try sinking tablets too...they confirm will get a share of it.

Current wise I do have a mild current flow from my internal filter & they sometimes will shoal together & swim against it(I dunno how to explain this behaviour). Temp is 26 degrees for my dwarven chocs with the addition of a mini blowing fan.

Lastly, these chocs do like to hide under shade or among plants, so I think they are a good addition to planted tank and vice versa.

[hjbyeo]

What's a Dwarf Choc Gourami, Guys?

Just a juvenile Choc Gourami or a really tiny Choc Gourami?

Got a pic?

[PeterGwee]

I doubt your fish are going to have any rest with that much current in the tank. You certainly do not need a eheim 2228 in a 20l tank! What you need to do is basically play around with the flow pattern and that is about it. A gentle even current is best imo/ime. Using the CO2 mist method would help determine if the CO2/nutrients are getting to the plants properly or not since the mist is visual.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[lorba]

I've caught chocolate gouramis at several locations before, most are slow flowing or still pools.

They like to hid in between vegetations, under logs, so it will be very helpful in providing hidding places with these in your tank. The weaker one can at least escape from the big bullies.




I've recently removed most of my plants from my 3ft. Had 3 big chocolate gouramis that i kept for 2years already. Now that there isnt much hidding place, one was pecked til death just days ago, so sad.