giant gourami hate crimes?

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justarn

Arapaima
MFK Member
May 24, 2011
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Kent UK
hey all heres my giant gourami 'pearsi' he gets on with all my fish from 3 to 11 inch from cichlids to catfish, snakeheads and charachins but he hates to of my cichlids... its got to the point where im thinking he's going to hurt them as he's huge and bangs them hard against the glass! he hates my 9 inch butti and 7 inch oscar, two pretty placid fish (unusual i know for a butti but this one is), it must be hate because there has been no rift between them... no old issues? very odd... gourami is 13inch and was a rescue from a small tank in a petshop, as was the oscar. i removed the oscar when we got the gourami a few months ago when i had a spare tank due to he's beatings, then he chose the butti... its like he picks a fish to vent on, he runs from a 3inch mayan tho! i had to remove the oscar from the grow out today now both are in hiding from pearsi... gonna have to remove them to a lfs i think! then will he pick a new victim? gutting because ive grown the butti from a baby but both me and the girlfriend have fallen for the gourami, named him, he's like a puppy! think thats all i can do, just wanted to share my experience and vent myself a bit, rant over!-)
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but sweet aswell, follows us everywhere! annoying when your trying to take pics of the other fish, he's always up in your grill lol!
 
what if you move the oscar & butti out, then the G switches beatings to other fish?
:-/
 
thats what i was thinking, wish they'd jus turn on him... i know he'd run!
 
i cant have tanks like that. too stressful for the fish and for me.
 
Giant gouramis are unkeepable, imho. They are the pestiest fish around and get downright mean when grown.
 
heres my 12" male
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As far as fish go he is really quite peaceful, he used to get bullied a lot by my chocolate cichlid but then one day he just decided to stop being weak and beat the **** out of the chocolate. These days the chocolate goes easy on him but the gourami does have his bad days where he will attack the chocolate. If hes hungry he will sometimes chase my tinfoils but thats more like exercise to him because the tinfoils can outrun him with ease.

They can be really mean and they can be really peaceful it all depends on the individual fish. Mine completely ignores any other fish in the tank except those 2. luckily those 2 can take a beating well. I'm growing out a micropeltes snakehead that will be his tankmate soon so I'm hoping they will make a good pair
 
same rafini, its me again!-)
 
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