Climbing perch/gourami legal in CA?

[Ej6hatchie]

Hi MFK.

Posting here because I tried googling and could not find anything on it. I came upon this fish while doing some research on gouramis online. Looks like an amazing fish to keep but Im trying to figure out if its legal in CA or not? looks like its a fish that can crawl on land and the only type of information I found was it is an invasive species in Australia or something. Please shine some light, I would like to know. Thank you!

wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climbing_gourami

 

[benzjamin13]

There was a time, about 5 years ago, or more, I would see these at almost every other LFS I went to. Now a days, I don't see any at all. I think I saw a few for sale once a couple of years ago. Unless something has changed, which I haven't heard, I still believe they are legal.

 

[Ej6hatchie]

that's interesting. I never knew about the fish to ever look for them in the past. i asked my friends about their legality, and they dont think its illegal as well. maybe it was the "walking" characteristics that made me think they might be illegal.

 

[esoxlucius]

That is a cool looking fish so I looked into it. I just put in "are climbing perch legal in california". A bit of info comes up but if you scroll down to "climbing perch, species profile" it shows a map of the US and where they've ever been found naturally or introduced.

Obviously they've never been found naturally because they are native to Asia but they were introduced onto a fish farm in manatee county in florida in the 60's. However, they seemed to disappear from the outside pond they were in before any proper research could be done on their impact. Apparently due to cooler winter temps in florida killing them off.

The failed observational experiment in florida seems to be the only recorded time that the climbing perch has been introduced to the whole of the US, let alone CA. Apparently they can live for 6 days out of water and can crawl across land.

It's quite interesting reading, look it up. I'd give you a link to it but I don't know how to.

 

[GiantFishKeeper101]

This fish can't survive cold temperature. Probably why they aren't listed as invasive. Plus, they only get to about 12". 8" in captive

 

[Ej6hatchie]

Ahhh icic makes sense. I was looking up some Youtube vids on them, they look pretty aggressive with their dorsal fins extended. Might look into getting some if I ever come across them. thanks !

 

[L3CTR0N]

No they only really get to about 5 inches if captive bred, with 8-12 inches for wild caught specimens. Most of them should be captive bred though. They can be quite nippy and territorial and should be kept with fast-moving tankmates, upper jaw bichirs or american cichlids. I had one and it nipped the crap out of my gourami.

 

[krichardson]

I had one quite a few years ago and it escaped my tank....lo and behold I did find it a day or so later as it was moving across the floor.

 

[benzjamin13]

A friend of mine kept one. He thought it would be pretty active and possibly aggressive, so he kept it alone in a 29g tank. He said it was pretty disappointing since all it did was hide in the corner. So I'm guessing it needs dither fish.