Replacing honey gourami

[LetoAtreidesII]

Hello all,

This is my first post, so forgive me if this question is in the wrong place. I have an 80L tank with 3x black phantom tetras, 6x cardinal tetras, 3x sterba's cory, 3x black cory and 2x honey gourami. I had, until this morning, 3 honey gourami but sadly one died from what I assume was a swim-bladder issue, despite my best efforts to save it. I'm fairly new to fishkeeping, but I've read that gourami prefer to be kept in groups of at least 3, so I'm looking to bring their numbers back up.

My question is, should the new fish also be a honey gourami, or will the other two accept a member of a very similar species with different colouring (pearl, dwarf etc.)? I enjoy the variety of fish and I think my tank is pretty close to the limit of what it can humanely hold, so getting something different would be fun, but obviously I'd prefer the fish to be happy with their new tank-mate than to get something that looks good but is miserable.

Thanks for your help,

Luke.

[Gingerlove05]

Hello and welcome Luke
Sorry for your loss
Honey gourami are very placid, unfortunately this trait doesn’t really extend to many (if any) of the other gourami species and they dont generally mix well between species and in this case it would likely be the honeys who would get bullied.
The pair should be ok on their own

[Martinspuddle]

Greetings & welcome to

Funny enough we were just taking about the Honey Gourami. Sorry hear you've lost one, I remember a time where Honey Gouramis where considered difficult to keep and therefore best kept in a species aquarium.

As @Gingerlove05 said a pair should be fine, problems arise from over amorous males constantly pursuing the female around the tank, hence the idea three, male, two females. Along as there's plenty of cover for these fish you shouldn't have any issues.

[LetoAtreidesII]

Thank you both for your replies! That's good to hear - they have always seemed very gentle, so I'll leave it as the two of them They're lovely fish, the colours are magnificent - was very sad to lose one!

[Martinspuddle]

So what's your setup, they like to see pictures here especially @plankton.... he's got a thing about seeing other hobbyists filters

[VikingMummy2015]

We were literally just talking about my new trio of honeys!
I’d definitely stick with the 2 you already have. Pearls definitely need a much larger tank (I had 3 in my previous 240L). And dwarf don’t share nicely .

[plankton]

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear of your loss.
Honeys are fine on their own, but they appear to be far more gregarious and docile than most of the other gourami.
I've found that females tend to get egg-bound more than other fish though.
They prefer softer water as well, do you know what the water hardness is where you are?
Harder water can make their osmotic system work incorrectly which can also cause similar problems.

So what's your setup, they like to see pictures here especially @plankton.... he's got a thing about seeing other hobbyists filters

**Hand goes over BAN button - just in case**

[Stephen]

Hello and welcome to the forum Luke.
Sorry to hear of your loss