One of my favorite fish in one of my community tanks is the Dwarf Flame Red Gourami (Trichogaster lalius) which is a species of gourami native to South Asia (India, West Bengal, Bangladesh, Assam).
These fish are found in moving waters in streams, lakes and in areas with a lot of vegetation.
They are omnivore’s and eats algae and prefers temperature between 72 to 82 F.
The males tend to have more color as males can have alternating blue and red colors, while females are silvery and that is why females are barely sold in stores. While for the dwarf gourami’s, the primary ones sold at pet stores are powder blue dwarf gourami and red flame, which happened to be captive bred color morphs of the same species.
Where you often hear about gourami’s living over 20 years and some growing huge, dwarf gourami’s are peaceful fish that the average life span is 4-6 years.
They are labyrinth fish, which means they breath straight from the air with a lung-like labyrinth organ and needs to have access to the water’s surface. And when it breeds, similar to a Betta, they create bubble nests.
There are a few people who dislike dwarf red flame gourami’s as some feel they are bullies and are aggressive.
Mine which I call “Boss” is not aggressive, if anything, he is a fish that likes to swim and likes to explore, eat and is a pretty chill gourami. Now, he doesn’t like being interrupted while he’s eating and for a short few seconds, will go after my pink GloFish Tetra, Pinkie. But Pinkie’s main bully, is Hemi, the green GloFish Tetra.
But I plan to get a second as I read they like to be in a pair. And we’ll see how it works. But for now, Boss is one of my favorite fresh water fish that I own.
