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Tropical Aquariums
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Tropical Freshwater Fish
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Sparkling Gourami
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Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Sparkling Gourami
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2poc (2poc)
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12 Jan 2009 09:44 #1
by 2poc (2poc)
Anybody keep these?
I'm not generally a gourami fan but I saw some for sale for the first time
at the weekend, very tempted to get some…
Not sure how well they would do in my hard water though…
Cheers,
Patrick
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12 Jan 2009 10:46 #2
by JohnH (John)
Patrick,
A lot of the Betta-type Gouramis (for want of a better [sorry for the unintended pun] description) are from soft and acid water, living in what those 'in the know' call leaf litter.
I tried to keep them since moving to Ireland but the untreated water here is very hard and alkaline - they didn't last the week!
These would be a lot better now I have all sorts of treatment 'plants' up and running, but I sincerely wouldn't recommend these to anyone whose water was hard and alkaline. Could you not set up a smaller 'species' tank for them exclusively? - You could either buy RO water from the LFS or use filtered rainwater (I think if you're in a City area you would want to also filter through activated charcoal too).
They tend to be rather retiring fish which keep away from the hustle and bustle of the normal community tank life, staying well out of the limelight - so you probably wouldn't see them very often anyway in that sort of environment - at least until they became well and truly accustomed to it.
Lovely little fish, though.
John
Location:
N. Tipp
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
ITFS member.
It's a long way to Tipperary.
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2poc (2poc)
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12 Jan 2009 11:04 #3
by 2poc (2poc)
Thanks for the info John - lovely fish but to be honest I couldn't be bothered setting up a special environment for them, I have enough on my hands maintaining my current lot!!
I'm surprised they're not seen around more often though, such a nice looking fish.
Sounds like their requirements would be similar to chocolate gouramis which are known to be very delicate alright..
Cheers,
Patrick.
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12 Jan 2009 11:27 #4
by JohnH (John)
Yes, and no - they aren't quite in the Chocolate Gourami category, those fishes really do require everything to be 'spot on' - at least the ones I kept some years ago did, they were fussy to the extreme!.
John
Location:
N. Tipp
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl - year after year.
ITFS member.
It's a long way to Tipperary.
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12 Jan 2009 18:46 #5
by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
I am keeping them at the moment and John's tread is spot on. Put them in a community type set up and they hide amongst the plants most of the time. Although they are only doing that lately.
They can also be a bit nippy with each other especially when breeding.
I keep them in a 15" deep tank but they prefer a shallow tank 7-10".
Sexing can be tricky. Te females are slightly more rounded and (if not stressed) the male has a row of light brown dots above the horizontal stripe on his side.
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2poc (2poc)
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13 Jan 2009 09:02 #6
by 2poc (2poc)
Cheers for the info platty252.
I suppose breeding is similar to that of dwarf gouramis?
Tiny fry that are difficult to feed?
I'm surprised I've never seen them for sale before considering they are cool looking fish.
When I did see them the other day they were labelled Misc. Tetras at 1.50 each.
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14 Jan 2009 18:45 #7
by platty252 (Darren Dalton)
Yes i imagine breeding is similar to dwarf gourami. But i haven't kept dwarf's.
The male builds a bubble nest in some plants at the surface. He will then attract a female and wrap himself around her. She releases the eggs and he fertilizes them. The eggs are then put up amongst the bubbles.
This is done on and off over several hours with a lot of eggs been placed in the nest of bubbles.
The male becomes aggressive when protecting the nest.
I have had 1 male with 3 bubble nests full of eggs at the same time so he doesn't nesacerily only mate with 1 female at a time.
I have only removed some young once to raise. They are tiny but i had no problems raising them. This could be because i mainly keep very small fish and i'm used to feeding tiny fry.
Infusoria would be a good first food for fry but i used Sera micron. A very fine powder food. After about 2 weeks they can take freshly hatched brine shrimp.
Thy are a bit slow to grow and i made a mistake of placing the half grown youngsters in to a tank with other fish. By the following morning they were all gone. A lesson learnt.
I agree they are a lovely little fish worthy of a place in most soft water tanks.
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