Scott Stevenson Posted January 29, 2022 Share Posted January 29, 2022 (edited) In the course of considering a Platy tank, I was wondering about potential tankmates. Gourami came up. I'm sure most would say to keep just one male Gourami in such a community tank, however if I had a suitably sized tank with plentiful enough plants and hardscape to allow two or three male Gourami to stake out their own space, could I keep said two or three male Gourami in a Platy tank under those conditions? Edited January 29, 2022 by Scott Stevenson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laritheloud Posted January 29, 2022 Share Posted January 29, 2022 I'm missing some information. Which species of gourami are you thinking? How many gouramis do you wish to put in the tank, and how big is the tank? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Stevenson Posted January 29, 2022 Author Share Posted January 29, 2022 (edited) @laritheloudI was thinking a 40g or 60g breeder tank. As I said the number of male Gourami would literally be two or three. I'm not super sure of the specific species name, I think I saw them called 3 spot, but here is a pic of what I was thinking. Edited January 29, 2022 by Scott Stevenson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laritheloud Posted January 29, 2022 Share Posted January 29, 2022 For the three spot gouramis I would recommend a 60 breeder and get a group of at least 4; 5 to 6 would be better. Females and males look very similar when they're juvenile so it'll be hard to sex. Try to stick to a higher proportion of females to males, but you should be okay even if you end up with more than one male. Gouramis are generally peaceful, but they can be feisty to other species if there aren't enough conspecifics around. By providing an appropriately-sized group in a large enough space, they will keep all their squabbling and aggression amongst themselves. You'll see chasing and some nipping as they work out their social hierarchy before things settle down, and that's normal. The same rules apply for most common gourami species EXCEPT dwarf gouramis which can be dicey. I'd suggest the same for pearl gouramis and any other color variant of the three spot, too. Hope this helps! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Stevenson Posted January 29, 2022 Author Share Posted January 29, 2022 @laritheloudAwesome thank you.! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JettsPapa Posted January 29, 2022 Share Posted January 29, 2022 In addition to the great information @laritheloud posted, I wanted to mention that gold and blue 3-spot gouramis are the same species, so you can mix them if you want. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted January 29, 2022 Share Posted January 29, 2022 I was very close to buying a nice group of blue and gold 3-spot gouramis for my 110 gallon aquarium but ended up going with pearl gouramis. The 3-spot gouramis are definitely appealing because you can mix the colors with them still being the same species. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JettsPapa Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 (edited) On 1/29/2022 at 5:23 PM, Levi_Aquatics said: I was very close to buying a nice group of blue and gold 3-spot gouramis for my 110 gallon aquarium but ended up going with pearl gouramis. The 3-spot gouramis are definitely appealing because you can mix the colors with them still being the same species. Good choice. I'm a big fan of pearls. How many do you have? (As far as I know I have the world record with 14.) Edited January 30, 2022 by JettsPapa 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drewzero1 Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 One thing I've read a few places online is that gouramis can sometimes pick on livebearers. I've got one female pearl gourami and one male molly, and the gourami seems to ignore the other fish and chase the molly around. (I've mostly noticed it around feeding time, so it could be food aggression. They tend to have similar eating habits vs. the danios and cories that I also have in there.) I don't think it's likely to be a problem in your tank, especially with multiple platies, but something to watch for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Stevenson Posted January 30, 2022 Author Share Posted January 30, 2022 Out of monetary necessity and desire to do things right, it takes me a long time to really put a tank together. A 60g breeder with Gourami, Platys and probably dalmatian Mollys, will not be happening anytime soon. I have four tanks right now and only two of those tanks actually have fish, another is a newly set up 10g quarantine tank and another is a 20g "plant dump". I have a 40g that is currently housing a few goldfish and a pleco that belong to a larger aquarium at the school were my wife works, so that some work can be done on the larger tank. My main tank is a 30g which has albino BN plecos, Julli corys and dwarf chain loaches. All the tanks that I currently have, I've managed to get my hands on for free. A 60g with warm water fish will be a real departure for me and longer term project. @laritheloudadvice about having a few more gourami than I was originally thinking, to help lower the aggression will be very helpful when I get to that point. For now I'm thinking of adding a heater to the 20g plant dump, bumping up the ph and hardness and getting a small group of mickey mouse and or wag tail blue platys. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mydonkeyfish Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 My three spot gourami is about 5.5 inches so i would recommend the 60😁 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Stevenson Posted January 30, 2022 Author Share Posted January 30, 2022 @Mydonkeyfish Oh yeah 100 percent for sure, I would never try to put gourami in anything small, especially with the numbers that @laritheloudwas suggesting. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Levi_Aquatics Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 I’m only at 3 right now but I definitely want a larger group like yours @JettsPapa 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laritheloud Posted January 30, 2022 Share Posted January 30, 2022 That sounds like a great plan @Scott Stevenson! I really want to raise a colony of platies so bad. They're such fun, adorable fish. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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