How aggressive are pearls really?!? Is 4 enough?

[NofishB4]

I just got a 55G (hooray!!!) and would like to get 4 Pearl gourami for my centre piece fish. Is is only moderately planted now but I have more plants coming and plan to keep my water lettuce quite thick as I deliberately choose low light plants. I’m going to baffle my hang on back filter this weekend.


The final stock will be:
10 skunk cories (in)
15 purple emperor tetras (in)
15 Kubotai rasbora (in)
15 cardinal tetras (to be added)
1 long fin green dragon pleco (to be added)
6 mystery snails (to be added)

My LFS has some beautiful pearls that have matured. I’m like 50% confident I can pick out a male and 3 females. Is this a good number? I don’t want to add too many but I also don’t want to add too few. How bad is the aggression if the male wants to breed? I have 2 male honeys and 4 females in my 40G and they rarely hang out and squabble with each other at feeding but they have never really fought or bothered anyone else in that community tank ever. I’m really looking for a calm, peaceful tank for this one too. Is the stocking looking ok? I’d like to see how it looks and flows and then bump up the schools if they need it.

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:27 AM, NofishB4 said:

I just got a 55G (hooray!!!) and would like to get 4 Pearl gourami for my centre piece fish. Is is only moderately planted now but I have more plants coming and plan to keep my water lettuce quite thick as I deliberately choose low light plants. I’m going to baffle my hang on back filter this weekend.


The final stock will be:
10 skunk cories (in)
15 purple emperor tetras (in)
15 Kubotai rasbora (in)
15 cardinal tetras (to be added)
1 long fin green dragon pleco (to be added)
6 mystery snails (to be added)

My LFS has some beautiful pearls that have matured. I’m like 50% confident I can pick out a male and 3 females. Is this a good number? I don’t want to add too many but I also don’t want to add too few. How bad is the aggression if the male wants to breed? I have 2 male honeys and 4 females in my 40G and they rarely hang out and squabble with each other at feeding but they have never really fought or bothered anyone else in that community tank ever. I’m really looking for a calm, peaceful tank for this one too. Is the stocking looking ok? I’d like to see how it looks and flows and then bump up the schools if they need it.

If you haven't noticed any aggression in the LFS, then it sounds good.

Please post a picture of the tank!

[Patrick_G]

It's worth a try, I haven't kept Pearl gourami but they seem docile for a Gourami. 

[JettsPapa]

On 11/1/2022 at 10:42 AM, Patrick_G said:

It's worth a try, I haven't kept Pearl gourami but they seem docile for a Gourami. 

They are.  They're probably the most docile, other than honey gouramis.

[The Arthritic Aquarist]

I hate to differ from the prevailing opinion and be a downer, but... I've had many Pearl Gouramis throughout the last many decades and have found males can be very aggressive.  I remember, for example, a 50 gallon of mixed larger gouramis (Pearls, Blues, Gold, Midnight, Giants) and the one male Pearl dominated the tank. He was quite intolerant.  It goes without saying that if the tank is heavily planted, it'll give any fish that may be picked on more room to seek refuge.

[JettsPapa]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:58 PM, The Arthritic Aquarist said:

I hate to differ from the prevailing opinion and be a downer, but... I've had many Pearl Gouramis throughout the last many decades and have found males can be very aggressive.  I remember, for example, a 50 gallon of mixed larger gouramis (Pearls, Blues, Gold, Midnight, Giants) and the one male Pearl dominated the tank. He was quite intolerant.  It goes without saying that if the tank is heavily planted, it'll give any fish that may be picked on more room to seek refuge.

Did you always have them with other gourami species?  I'm asking because it's always been my understanding that it's best to not mix gouramis in the same tank.  Also, I have eleven pearl gouramis, with roughly equal numbers of males and females, and they don't show any aggression at all.

[BlueLineAquaticsSC]

My experiences are the same with The Arthritic Aquarist. Pearls have been aggressive for me (and my dad who also kept them. Had them in community tanks and they showed a lot of aggression towards each other, enough for a few casualties. Not much aggression with the non gourami fish though. I think Snakeskin Gourami are less aggressive, but I don’t have experience with them. 
 

[The Arthritic Aquarist]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:38 PM, BlueLineAquaticsSC said:

My experiences are the same with The Arthritic Aquarist. Pearls have been aggressive for me (and my dad who also kept them. Had them in community tanks and they showed a lot of aggression towards each other, enough for a few casualties. Not much aggression with the non gourami fish though. I think Snakeskin Gourami are less aggressive, but I don’t have experience with them. 
 

I've had Snakeskins as well and they tended to be less problematic than Pearls.  Can confirm that Pearls don't tend to bother other species as much.

My experience with males Pearls (not necessarily in every case) is that they will particularly show this type of behaviour among other Pearls and other gouramis.  Having said that, I was rather surprised as I would have expected other varieties to be more problematic (Blues, Golds, Moonlights, Snakeskins).

[NofishB4]

Here is the tank currently. If you look near the plane there is a tiny red tiger lotus and we plan to let the water lettuce grow fairly thick

[B7gwap]

I have two adult pearls of unknown sex in a 29 community, they sometimes chase each other but otherwise are beautiful cool fish to watch. Very personable, I can almost hand feed them like koi. 

Edited November 2, 2022 by B7gwap

[JettsPapa]

On 11/1/2022 at 6:54 PM, B7gwap said:

I have two adult pearls of unknown sex in a 29 community, they sometimes chase each other but otherwise are beautiful cool fish to watch. Very personable, I can almost hand feed them like koi. 

If those are adults (it's difficult to get scale from the picture, but I'll take your word for it), they're both females.

[The Arthritic Aquarist]

@JettsPapa I'd agree that those look like females (if adults).  The females are peaceful.  They are beautiful fish (which is why I've kept them several times).  The males have longer finnage, have an orange breast and are generally more colourful.

@NofishB4 If you go ahead, you should have a backup plan in case it doesn't work out. Labyrinth fish, along with other species like cichlids, can have their own personalities. For example, I had Jack Dempsies that were big babies and certainly did not live up to the name or reputation.  The presence of dither fish, like the Emperor Ts and Cardinals, could also have a calming effect.  Also, more plants will be needed. There are a lot of variables.

Edited November 2, 2022 by The Arthritic Aquarist
Fixed typo

[NofishB4]

On 11/2/2022 at 8:42 AM, The Arthritic Aquarist said:

@JettsPapa I'd agree that those look like females (if adults).  The females are peaceful.  They are beautiful fish (which is why I've kept them several times).  The males have longer finnage, have an orange breast and are generally more colourful.

@NofishB4 If you go ahead, you should have a backup plan in case it doesn't work out. Labyrinth fish, along with other species like cichlids, can have their own personalities. For example, I had Jack Dempsies that were big babies and certainly did not live up to the name or reputation.  The presence of dither fish, like the Emperor Ts and Cardinals, could also have a calming effect.  Also, more plants will be needed. There are a lot of variables.

More than what’s in the tank?  The jungle val, red tiger lily, 2 aponogeton and dwarf lettuce should all fill in pretty fast. All of them should reach the top of the tank. There is a decent clump of susswassertang which grows pretty well in our other tanks (started with a gold ball sized portion).  

I was going to baffle the flow of my HOB filter but maybe I will leave it to discourage bubble nests. There are lots of calm spots for them to breathe from the surface. 

[JettsPapa]

On 11/2/2022 at 12:31 PM, NofishB4 said:

More than what’s in the tank?  The jungle val, red tiger lily, 2 aponogeton and dwarf lettuce should all fill in pretty fast. All of them should reach the top of the tank. There is a decent clump of susswassertang which grows pretty well in our other tanks (started with a gold ball sized portion).   

More plants is rarely, if ever, a bad thing, but I think it's fine.

On 11/2/2022 at 12:31 PM, NofishB4 said:

I was going to baffle the flow of my HOB filter but maybe I will leave it to discourage bubble nests. There are lots of calm spots for them to breathe from the surface. 

Mine have never shown any breeding behavior.  Maybe because of my high pH, gH, and kH?

[The Arthritic Aquarist]

On 11/2/2022 at 1:31 PM, NofishB4 said:

More than what’s in the tank?  The jungle val, red tiger lily, 2 aponogeton and dwarf lettuce should all fill in pretty fast. All of them should reach the top of the tank. There is a decent clump of susswassertang which grows pretty well in our other tanks (started with a gold ball sized portion).  

I was going to baffle the flow of my HOB filter but maybe I will leave it to discourage bubble nests. There are lots of calm spots for them to breathe from the surface. 

As it stands, there's not a lot of potential refuge in your tank from a plant perspective.  Plants can take awhile to fill in.  If there is aggression, the victims won't have much of  anywhere to hide at the moment.

[NofishB4]

On 11/2/2022 at 11:50 AM, JettsPapa said:

More plants is rarely, if ever, a bad thing, but I think it's fine.

Mine have never shown any breeding behavior.  Maybe because of my high pH, gH, and kH?

That makes sense!  I have 2 male and 4 female honeys in my other heavily planted tank and while my one honey constantly builds nests they never stay together and none of my females even bat an eye at him.   I know the honeys are more peaceful as a rule but I really like the gouramis which is why the pearls seem the next logical step. 
 

Did you add all 11 at once?  If aggression becomes an issue would adding more pearls help to diffuse it or make it worse (in your opinion obviously)  

I’m hoping to add more plants eventually but want to see how these ones grow and fill out.  In my other tank I have mostly anubias and crypts with water lettuce  I really like the seaweed look that the val will bring if it spreads well and stays healthy.   My floaters (I have all of them in various tanks) grow amazingly long roots as well for cover so I expect these ones will too.  I would have just done driftwood but this is the family tank…kids  🙄 

 

[NOLANANO]

The only fish I have ever seen Pearls get aggressive with is other Gouramis.  I have 3 Pearls in my community tank right now and they get along with everyone and each other.

[JettsPapa]

On 11/2/2022 at 1:43 PM, NofishB4 said:

. . . Did you add all 11 at once?  If aggression becomes an issue would adding more pearls help to diffuse it or make it worse (in your opinion obviously)  

I’m hoping to add more plants eventually but want to see how these ones grow and fill out.  In my other tank I have mostly anubias and crypts with water lettuce  I really like the seaweed look that the val will bring if it spreads well and stays healthy.   My floaters (I have all of them in various tanks) grow amazingly long roots as well for cover so I expect these ones will too.  I would have just done driftwood but this is the family tank…kids  🙄 

It's a long story, and I might not get the sequence of events exact, but no, I didn't add them all at once.  I started with just one male, then my daughter-in-law gave me one she didn't want.  About that time I had some store credit at my favorite LFS, so I decided I'd use it to get some females.  As you probably know, they're difficult to sex, and most of the new ones also turned out to be males.  At that point I had somewhere in the neighborhood of seven, with only two females.

Then my daughter-in-law's friend was breaking down her 55 gallon tank (that had a group of pearls in it) and selling it to my daughter-in-law, along with all the fish and equipment.  DIL didn't want those pearls either, and offered them to me.  Of course I said "Sure, why not?"  Thankfully those were mostly females.  That got me up to fourteen.

I've since lost three, which leaves me with eleven.  As I said above, I've never seen any aggression from them.  While of course it changes occasionally, the tank is always at least moderately planted, so there are always plenty of hiding places, which I believe helps.

[drewzero1]

Ap

On 11/2/2022 at 1:55 PM, NOLANANO said:

The only fish I have ever seen Pearls get aggressive with is other Gouramis.  I have 3 Pearls in my community tank right now and they get along with everyone and each other.

I had a pearl that really had it out for a male molly in the tank. (Can't remember for sure, but I think he was my only molly at the time.)

A few weeks ago a pearl was rehomed to me after bullying a honey gourami and another pearl. In my molly-heavy community tank (with no other gouramis present) she's been just a perfect angel so far.

When I got my first pearl my tank was young and plants hadn't had a chance to grow out yet. I put some fake plants in for cover until the real ones grew in. My aponogetons grew fast, but the fish needed cover right away!

[NofishB4]

Thank you everyone who shared your experiences with pearls!!  
 

After speaking with our LFS and a couple local hobbyists we have decided to try the pearls. They had a lot of interest in trios and were not confident that the females (we hope) would last. We have several breeder nets and other tanks that can serve as backup if aggression becomes an issue. After being quarantined for 3 weeks in a tank with no cover and absolutely no aggression (according to the owner) we are hopeful that our plants will fill in before any problems might pop up. 
 

Dither fish include cories, cherry barbs (LFS recommended over Kubotai) purple emperor tetras. We are going to leave the cardinals out. 

We’ve also stolen more water lettuce,  frogbit, and val from our other tanks  

 

[RadMax8]

I requested 1 male and 3 females at my LFS and ended up with the opposite. While I was expecting some squabbling, I have noticed minimal. There’s definitely a dominant male in my tank, as he’s bigger and slightly more colored up than the others, but he seems to be fairly laid back. I do have 5 females (I hope) in my QT tank now to add to a new tank, as I don’t think my Pearls appreciate the higher flow in my 40b community tank, which also houses about 17 green fire tetras and 13 cories. So I made the executive decision to start a new tank haha.

Your fish look good! Definitely got a boy on your hands, your last photo shows how different the marking intensity looks side by side. Feed them well and you’ll get to enjoy them growing into even more beautiful fish!