Chocolate Gourami

@DoubleDutch: Well according to the internet they do take flakes and are omnivorous with see if I can get them to take dried foods.

 

What I meand to say : other gouramis need some vegs/algae in their diet to stay healthy. I don't know for chocolats though.

 

Yeah fish rarely take chocolate :tongue:

 

Hahahaha, they are choclatorious !!!

 

Which ones? The threadfins or the chocs? Suppose it doesn't matter as they all get the same food. I'm not actually sure. I will get the containers and look at the ingredients.

 

I use Ocean nutrition Cichlid Omni pellets (for carnivorous and omnivorous cichlids) as well as Ocean nutrition community formula pellets (a complete diet for all freshwater tropical fish). To this I add shrimp pellets and earthworm pellets that I got from the states (Eds all natural tropical fish foods) - just because I won it and need to use it up. I also add discus pellets that I got as a sample from a LFS in Cape Town when I ordered fertilizer from them. As you can see I don't have a formula - just add a whole bunch of foods and grind to a dust. Flakes don't grind well so I don't use them . But you do make a valid point. Maybe I should add some vegetarian food that I can grind in as well.

 

Well, I fed my fish the evening again and they don't seem to mind flakes, they do love the mini beta pellets. So with regular feeding I should be able to get them feeding on flakes.

 

I'd be carefull with Cichlidpellets, cause they are very proteinrich. Think Betta-pellets are better, but I'll ask a Dutch keeper what he is feeding his Chocolats.

 

Ok. I will look into it. I dont have many left in the bottle. Will look to switch to a different type of pellet then once I have depleted my supply. Something more suitable to community fish. But as I said I grind it into a dust so it is a mixture of all sorts of foods that get fed simultaneously. And only a little each day. I see the cichlid pellets are 42 % protein while the community pellets are 55 %. To be honest I don't really look at whats in the food I feed just so long as there is a variety.

 

Finally managed to snap a picture of 3 of the 4 Chocolate Gourami I have, notice the ones ragged back fin not due to other fish in the tank but fighting between each other. Strangely enough they have hours were they don't even take note of each other then they will randomly start fighting again. They love having out under the DIY flow ramp I built for my HOB and my big Anubai:

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Ahh man I also want chocolate gourami's cant seem to find them here in the east or im always just unlucky.

 

Yeah they are amazing little fish. I have noticed some very amazing behaviour, seems when they show submissiveness to each other they go lay flat on their sides for a couple of seconds till the aggressor is happy then it is back to business.

 

oh I am sooo jealous !! so many fish, so few tanks...

 

@francoisve: And I am jealous of yours. lol!

 

Very nice. I'd also like to have some Choc Gourami's some day.

Please take note, It's 'Anubia' and not 'Anubai'

 

Updated time, after a week they stopped eating all of a sudden which has been going on for the past 3 days. So instead of leaving them, I gave them to a friend who has a biotope setup especially for them as he already owns around 15 of them in a 150 litre setup. My hope is they will do better there than in my tank, I think they are more sensitive than I bargained.

 

Glad to hear you could get them to an appropriate tank. The rumors of them being sensitive is no idle chit chat.

 

What pH and tds you keeping them in? Tank bred still needs a tds of 150 and less to be happy. Mine are tolerant from 6 to 7.4 on pH but I make my pH lower for them to be happy. They like tannins and can be vicious little bastards

 

@FancyShrimp: My water parameters were fine but I think it is because my tank lacks tannins, and from what I hear it does their immune systems good and generally it keeps them in good health.

 

Dude what was your tds? I've kept these for longer than a few days... So take the advice instead of looking for an excuse please