Gourami Fish

[lucius]

Looking for input on gourami fish.  I presently have six pearl gourami's (about three inches) in a 90 gallon tank, not heavily planted, and was thinking of adding a couple of blue, opaline or gold gourami's.  But I read that they are very aggressive which is why I got the pearl gourami's.  I've tried honey and dwarf gourami's but they died and only the pearl gourami's have stayed alive.  I also have Colombian tetras that sort of act as a dither fish.

Does anyone keep blue, opaline or gold gourami's and are they aggressive as they say?

[Gilbotron]

I've keep all of the above (except pearls) in a 90g together and have not had any issues, but I am also very careful keeping the male to female ratio proper and also keep tank heavily planted (especially at the top which is where gouramis tend to live most of the time).

Females are not aggressive at all.  Males can get aggressive with each other (usually around 6 months to 1 yr age) and can also bully the females a bit. I always try to maintain a 3:1 ratio of females to male so that any bullying is spread around and have found this to work great.  Opalines/platinum/gold/lavender gouramis are all essentially the same species so if you maintain that ratio across all of them, then you should be ok (e.g. a gold male will be aggressive with an opaline male). In a tank that size you probably shouldn't have more than 3 males in total, especially if its not heavily planted or with alot of decorations in the upper water column to block line of sight.  Not sure if Pearls need to be considered in this ratio or not as its the one I haven't kept before.  Also not sure about 3 spot gourami's which are also a different species (and generally stay smaller) if they would be aggressive with the full size ones listed above.

Hope this helps.