Completely stumped, please help me with my pearl gourami.

[philipraposo1982]

Hi everyone,

I have 4 pearl gouramis (3 females with 1 male), the male has not been displaying much colour for quite a long time now and I have no idea why or how to fix it. I am really hoping that someone here can shed some light on this for me and help bring his colour back.

Tank history:
tank is over 1 year old now, its a 75g that is heavily planted running a finnex planted plus and a eheim 2075 canister filter. The temp is now being kept at 77 degrees but this is more recent; previously for the majority of the first year it was being kept in the low 80's. Reducing the temp a bit is something I am trying to see how it effects the fish.

I don't really does any ferts because I grow mainly crypts and other bulb / rhizome plants that are slow growers. Plants are doing well but I did do a full rescape of the tank recently where I switched out the substrate for PFS and now ho brow diatoms popping up everywhere. Rescape was doing about 3 weeks ago.

The fish:

For the first 5-6 months that I had these fish the males colour was normal and while not the brightest orange colouration, it was there and looked like how it should. He went there a period where he didn't eat or do much of anything (months, maybe 2-3) but I kept provided good water and quality food and he bounced back. he is not very active when feeding and has put on weight. There is no other fish in the tank that bullies him as he is the biggest and most dominant fish in the tank without question.

I have noticed that his pearls are coming back nicely and his fins and scales look great, very bright eyes and like I said he is active and eats well. For whatever reason the orange in his throat has not returned...

Any thoughts?

 

[scootamum]

Not sure if it's much help or not, but I keep my pearl gourami at 26c - which is approximately 79 degrees fahrenheit.

What are your other water stats like? e.g. PH, hardness, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate etc.

 

[philipraposo1982]

PH is 7.6, GH and kh is 7&8 respectively, ammo 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 10-15. Temp used to be at 80 but I thought I would try it at a little lower and see if anything changed, nothing did change though. Less evaporation, but that's about it.

Yesterday, I decided to add another male pearl gourami to the tank and see if the added competition would promote some more showing off of his true colors. Seems to be working so far, no aggression, but they are displaying their big fins around each other. My original male seems to be showing some of his orange already. I will keep you guys updated.

 

[scootamum]

Personally, I don't think that adding another male to the tank is going to be a long term solution, and may potentially be cause for more problems down the line. If you intend to keep both males, and have the room I would recommend upping the numbers of the females. The colouring up of the original male is (in my opinion) because he has competition from another male, and they are basically sizing each other up, and trying to establish a pecking order.

Although pearls are one of the more peaceful fish in the Trichopodus family, the incorrect balance of males to females is never a good idea. The minimum ratio for these fish is one male to at least two females. Three females to each male is a better ratio still...

Your water stats look good. The only thing is maybe try to bring down the PH a bit closer to neutral. Although pearls are adaptable fish, they do better in neutral to slightly acidic conditions. The best specimens are usually seen in 'tea stained' set ups, containing lots of tanins in the water. This is easily achievable through the gradual addition of alder cones, catappa leaves etc. The requirements of other tank mates will of course have to be taken into consideration before going down this route.

As you are most probably aware, any changes in water parameters should be done gradually to prevent PH and osmotic shock in the fish.

I hope it all works out for you.