It’s hard to recognise when the fish are small and the tank looks easily big enough. But the answers you’re getting are not wrong, they are just up front and letting you know what is to come. Ok, they could be put to you better and phrased differently, but I’ve been there, I know, there not the answers to questions your asking and there not answers you want to hear.
The thing is, a 24” gourami and a potentially 18” lima (that’s how big both of mine are/got to) will be a different look in a tank. With a group of 12” tinfoils at the time, even you may recognise it to be crowded. But yes that’s another 12-18 months down the line and there’s lots you can do in the meantime. But that includes things like, move the fish on to someone else, build a pond, spend thousands on a tank three times the size.
But you need to be aware of these things upfront, so you can make your choices now.
Now if he stays the size he is, great, and only your Lima gets bigger, and your water quality is really good, then yes a small group of tinfoils might be a good choice.
And on the other note, that might be part of the reason although I doubt it.
It’s equally people not wanting to hear the answer they’re given and only recognising it was right 12 months later. Maybe leaving the site in the meantime. But mainly that fishkeeping as a hobby is slowly dieing out. With all the restrictions on imports, what you can keep, google searches instead of experienced answers on sites like this, and the spiralling cost of energy and hardware.
Too many people give it a go thinking it’s “just keeping fish”, not recognising the amount of research, questions, things to think about, the science behind it, and the amount of crap info there is at your fingertips on sites like Facebook.
It is keeping fish, but it is really keeping really good water, if you can do that then keeping fish becomes easy.
