Pearl gourami

Water parameters

Tolerated range for this species. Aim for the middle of each band rather than the extremes.

Tank and habitat

Substrate: any.

Behavior

Plant interaction: plant safe.

Feeding

Omnivore that accepts flake, pellets, frozen bloodworm, brine shrimp, and daphnia. Not a picky eater. Feeds at the surface and midwater. Two feedings per day. Pearl gouramis also pick at small insects and organisms on the surface film, which is natural labyrinth fish behavior. Quality food brings out the pearlescent coloring and the male's orange throat.

Compatibility

• Peaceful for a gourami. Less territorial and aggressive than dwarf gouramis or three-spot gouramis.
• Good tankmates: tetras, rasboras, corydoras, loaches, bristlenose plecos, angelfish (with caution, as both occupy the midwater).
• Males are territorial with each other but the aggression is display-based (flaring, chasing) rather than physical damage. One male per 150 L is safe.
• Avoid very small tankmates that might be bullied. Avoid active fin nippers.
• Does not carry the DGIV virus risk that plagues dwarf gouramis, which makes it a more reliable choice.

Origin and habitat

Trichopodus leerii, the pearl or lace gourami, is a large, peaceful anabantoid from the lowland swamps of Southeast Asia, native to Thailand, Malaysia, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, where it lives in soft, acidic, often coastal black water. Introduced populations have turned up in Singapore and Colombia. Pieter Bleeker described it in 1852 as Trichopus leerii, naming it for van Leer, who collected the type material at Palembang on Sumatra. Its genus has bounced around, sitting for years under Trichogaster after an early misinterpretation before being returned to Trichopodus in 2009. The body is the draw: a fine mosaic of pearly white spots over a brownish ground with a dark lacy line down the flank, and breeding males flush deep red-orange across the throat and chest. As a labyrinth fish it gulps air at the surface, which lets it cope with the low-oxygen swamps it comes from. It grows to around 12 cm, is listed by IUCN as Near Threatened from habitat loss, and is almost always commercially bred rather than wild-caught now.

Breeding

A bubble-nest builder like other gouramis. A ready male blows a large raft of saliva-coated bubbles among floating plants, sometimes a good handspan across, then displays his orange chest to the female. They spawn in the typical anabantoid embrace beneath the nest, the male collecting the falling eggs and spitting them up into the bubbles, and once spawning is done he guards the nest while the female is best removed. The eggs hatch in roughly a day, the fry hang in the nest for a couple more days on their yolk, and then need infusoria-grade food before baby brine shrimp. Breeding is not difficult, just bulkier than with dwarf gouramis because the adults and their nests are larger.

Common problems

The main quirk is shyness: newly added pearl gouramis often hide and may not eat for the first week or two, settling in faster with floating cover and calm tankmates. They are hardier than dwarf gouramis but still carry a susceptibility to the dwarf gourami iridovirus, so they should not share water with infected dwarf gouramis. Otherwise the usual concerns apply, ich after transport and bacterial infections when water quality slips, and gouramis dislike sudden changes in water chemistry, so slow acclimation helps. Males can turn rough during breeding and harass a female, so dense planting gives her places to escape.

Bioload

Further reading

• Stocking ideas by tank size