[joe_fish80]

Ok, so I've noticed two new dead fish today. A serpae tetra and one of my Peacock gobies. Neither looked ill the other day or well anything really. I'm suspecting my Gourami's are going on a night time murder spree perhaps. Not entirely sure what else could be doing it. Lost a neon tetra about a week ago as well, I assumed he just got scared and croaked or something. Water is fine tested it nothing abnormal. Plus water conditions would kill the khuli loaches and neons before the Serpae and the goby generally speaking.


My thought is since the gourami's aren't coming out to eat with the rest of the fish, perhaps they're going a bit ballistic when the lights go out. They're just way overly shy. Rarely do they leave their home behind the crypt. Starting to think they were a poor choice since the plants are not yet up tot the top of the water level so they most likely just don't have enough shade to feel safe.


Stock in the 55

3 Pearl Gourami's

3 Peacock gobies - one died last night

5 Neon Tetra's - one died a week ago

5 Serpae Tetra's - one died last night

6 White Clouds

6 Khuli Loaches

 

[mistergreen]

Pearls are relatively nice gourami's. Look at the bodies for attacks. Fish don't usually get scared to death.

I think something is going on with your water parameters. Check to see if your water company uses chlorine or chloramine.

 

[takadi]

It really depends on the individual gourami but I think it's a myth that pearl gouramis are sweet and nice fish. Some pearls are nice, some are really nasty and nippy. Most of the ones I've had were just as aggressive as any other gourami. I had to go through about three pearls because there was one female that kept killing the others. The dead ones ended up with missing eyes, feelers, thrashed fins. Luckily some guy was able to buy it from me. Now there's male and a female in my tank. They occasionally chase the other fish but so far so good

 

[heyzeus]

I had 3 golden gouramis and im 99% sure they was killing other fish. Unlike your pearls, they were both very active during the day and constantly chasing other fish. The dominant gourami also attacked the other gouramis. A few dead tetras and plattys later I got rid of them and the dead fish stopped showing up. Never going to get gouramis in a community again.

 

[JSA]

It doesn't seem likely to me that your pearls are the culprits. Based on my experience, they are a pretty peaceful fish. Your description of their behavior bears that out. If they had a murderous nature, they wouldn't wait until lights-out if they decided to behave aggressively. They would be chasing everything that came their way. I agree with MrGreen that you need to look at other factors in your tank.

Julia

 

[jeralar49]

I think you should hire Magnum p.i. to get to the bottom of this caper. I mean he was in Hawaii, surely he knew about tropical fish.

 

[joe_fish80]

Was the gourami's we killed the lights and used our night vision goggles and sure enough out the three came like a gang in the ghetto shooting after the other fish. No clue what their bloody deal "was". ((The fish did show signs of battle, one of the serpae's was missing most of his tail.)) There are now no Gourami's in the tank. So I think we'll just leave the stock as is and just increase the size of the Peacock goby group cause they're nifty little buggers and socialize with everyone, even the snail... The other day the larger of the males sat on the snail for a good fifteen mins before getting bored with his sliming around.

 

[joe_fish80]

Day one without gourami's, 0 Deaths.

 

[takadi]

Again, it all depends on the individual gourami with pearls. If it is obvious that the pearls are killing your fish, then you must do a cost benefit analysis and make a decision on whether to keep them and move the other fish to another tank/sell them, or visa versa.