I have a 20gal fish tank at home as well. i just lost my original blue gourami of about 4yrs yesterday it was sad.

Aww... poor fishy

Aww sorry to hear about your fish. What's a blue gromnie? Do you mean a blue gourami?

I used to keep blue two spot gouramis when I was younger, your post reminded me of them. Once we get settled in our new house I'm going to start a new FW community tank and get myself some pearl gouramis, absolutely gorgeous fish. The pearl gouramis are my all time favorite out of the gourami family, if you haven't seen an adult male pearl gourami you are missing out!

oh that sucks! i have a 39 gal salt water and my starfish was dead yesterday when i got home :-( sucks losing your fish...they turn into your babies too after you have had them for so long!

Huskyluv wrote:

Aww sorry to hear about your fish. What's a blue gromnie? Do you mean a blue gourami?

I used to keep blue two spot gouramis when I was younger, your post reminded me of them. Once we get settled in our new house I'm going to start a new FW community tank and get myself some pearl gouramis, absolutely gorgeous fish. The pearl gouramis are my all time favorite out of the gourami family, if you haven't seen an adult male pearl gourami you are missing out!

you got me i ment gourami! im gonna go looking for a new one just after i finish cleaning out my tank before my mom comes in a few weeks. will have to look for a pearl one. i just added some new neons and 3 others i can't think of what they were so i have to let them settle in before i clean and add 1 more fish.

Sounds like your tank is pretty well stocked so adding more may not be a good idea. I don't think I'd add a "large" gourami to a tank with fish as small as neons anyway, male gouramis tend to be a tad on the aggressive side.

Here are a few pics I found on my computer from a LONG time ago of my group of pearl gouramis (Trichogaster leeri). They are hard to sex when they are babies and I bought mine when they were just little tiny things. The pairings should have been 3 females to 1 male and what I ended up with was 1 female to 3 males. My group of pearls got along very well though but my poor female had to put up with those 3 boys I felt bad for her at times. Anyway, pictures of these fish do NOT do them justice at all! Not just my pics but any pics you find of them do not put across how amazing these fish look in person. The males have bright orange chests and trailing filaments on the dorsal, anal, and caudal fins. All of them have this iridescent coloring to them that just does not get picked up in film or digital photography. They also get their name from the small white dots covering their body which look like pearls. Most stores carry the juveniles and their coloring is nowhere near as amazing as the adults.

Anyway, here are the pics I have of mine but they really don't even come close to capturing their true beauty.

Female in front (left) and Male in back (right):


Female in front (left) and Male in back (right):


Male:


Another male:

Ahh i have seen these before! i have always gotten them as juveniles, love watching them grow, i have never had an aggression issue with them and i ways just have 1 because of the size. i think i have 11-12 small/med fish so adding the one large will not be an issue. can't wait to get the tank clean again and i will take a pic, its not bad now but i like a clean tank and it just takes like an hr or more to clean it so i just have to find the time.

Wow, that's a lot of fish for such a small tank. You must be doing major water changes every week with such a large bio load! Better you than me!

20gal is not small. i do a water change like every 3-5 months i have a outside filter and an underground filter running. i add water every few days as with our dryness out here i loses like 1-2" a week.

Fish would die horrible deaths in my care.

harrise wrote:

Fish would die horrible deaths in my care.

+1

"Small" is relative but for that amount of fish I'd say 20 gallons is small. lol I hope when you say you do WC's every 3-5 months you mean full WC's and that you actually at least do a bare minimum of 10% WC's every week. Are you testing your water weekly? I just can't imagine with a bio-load the size of yours that you could get away with so few WC's and keep your fish healthy.

Have you been keeping fish for very long? I'm going to assume that by "outside filter" you are referring to an external power filter? I am not a big fan of underground filters personally, I don't know many people who are hobbyists who actually still use UF's. It's just one of those "old school" methods that can backfire if not handled properly.

I don't mean to get on your case or anything. I've just been in this hobby for 20 years, that's right since I was 5 yrs old! I've always been passionate about the hobby since my very first fish and I know from hindsight how poorly my fish were cared for during the first 8 years or so because of my lack of knowledge. Like all animals, fish want to live and can live for surprising amounts of time even in very poor conditions but that doesn't make it right.

I like to put it in terms that are easier for us to understand. Let's take your two sibes for example and do a comparative illustration. So say you have your fish in a 20 gallon tank and only do a water change every 3 months.

Now if we were to do the same thing with your dogs here's probably what it would look like. Jack and Sierra are confined to a large bedroom which they never leave. The doors and windows are closed 24/7 but it is not airtight so of course they can still breath whatever little air slips through around the doors and window seal...it's not much air exchange but it's enough that they can breathe fine. Now Sierra and Jack get fed at least once or twice a day and they also pee and poop once or twice a day minimum. Any uneaten food does not get removed from the room and likewise none of the pee and poo are removed. Can you just imagine the ammonia build up? Now imagine that Sierra and Jack are left in these living conditions for 3 months at a time before their room is cleaned. They would probably survive those conditions but they couldn't possibly thrive or much less be healthy. And in truth they'd probably be removed under a cruelty warrant if that ever happen. But if you only do WC's for your fish every 3 months it's not much different and your fish will not be able to thrive in a tank filled with poison...poison that is removed by water changes. People think that filters remove the junk from their tank but really it only traps the crud in the filter but it's still in the tank.

I really don't mean to come across the wrong way, I am only concerned about the health of your fish. The same way I would say something about a dog being kept in unsafe/unsanitary conditions I will do the same thing if I have concerns about a fish living in unsanitary conditions. Doesn't matter if they have fur, fins or feathers I don't discriminate. I am merely mentioning all this because I am concerned about your fish and only want to help.

Fish can live very long lives when properly cared for. I had a pleco that lived into his teens before I rehomed him and my current pair of clownfish are 8.5 yrs old. I'm just trying to help so please don't think that I am attacking you or anything.

i don't feel attacked and i appreciate your in site about my tank. i just lose the time to take care of it sometimes and i know i need to do a better job on it. that might be added to the top of my list for the weekend.

I too can appreciate the fact that we are all busy and I'll gladly admit that sometimes I really slip in my fishes' care. I tend to put them off or forget about them more easily because they are "silent" and can't complain or get my attention like the dogs or guinea pigs who will make a ruckus if they are ignored. I just got done cleaning the guinea pigs' cage which I do a full cage clean every other day yet my last water change for my fish was 3 weeks ago. Typically I do a partial WC once a month and a full WC every 3-4 months depending on how dirty the tank gets. And do understand also that my previous post was not just directed specifically towards you but for the benefit of anyone that might be reading who either have fish or intend to get them in the future. I don't get called a fish freak for no reason.

Bummer I have to do a 50% wc on my 45 and 120 once a week

In my 45 I have a blue thai silk fh growout and in my 120 my current stock is a 10" Herichthys carpintis a 9" JD and one 4" Black Convict. I am currently running a 50g sump on the 120 and a Penn Plax Cascade 1100 on the 45.

Ugh. Don't even talk about WC's! I was good and did a 5 gallon WC on both my 28 gallon saltwater tank yesterday and killed a bunch of aiptasia. I hate doing tank maintenance! I wouldn't mind being tank free, but for some reason we're setting up an awesome rimless 75 gallon tank. Why, oh, why do I do this to myself?! Damn saltwater tanks are addicting.

Koda wrote:

harrise wrote:

Fish would die horrible deaths in my care.

+1

+2