Common Name:

Dwarf Gourami

 

Overview:

Colisa lalia is a beautiful, brightly colored gourami readily available in fish stores. Because of it's bright, sometimes flourescent appearing colors they are the most common gourami sold. They stay relatively small. Maximum size topping out at about 3 inches. Given a lush cover of plants and hiding places this is a suitable fish for the community aquarium, but do so with caution. It is a gourami, and by nature gouramis have an aggressive and territorial side to them. So, give this fish enough space and plant growth to keep them well covered, safe and secure, and pre-occupied. Also, use caution in having more than one of these in the average sized tank, 55 gallons or less. Two males will easily be territorial and aggressive with each other, and if you are lucky enough to get a female (they are paler in color and harder to obtain), you will not want a pair of labyrinth fishes spawning in your community tank because they can and will do physical harm, if not kill, the other fish in the tank..

 

Distribution:

Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

 

Coloration:

Wild type coloring will have a blue and red diagonally striped body including the fins. Color variants have been selectively bred from powder blue to bright red, with many variations in between. The body is oblong-round, with a rounded face. This fish like most other gouramis, sport the distinguished whispy, hair-like, pelvic fins..

 

Care:

Although this is a very popular fish in the aquarium fish trade, it is not necessarily easy to keep and should not be recommended to beginners. It is imperitive that this fish has immaculate water conditions because, sadly, it is prone to bacterial diseases and will fall ill very easily, even in a well kept aquarium. These fish feel most comfortable within a thick plant cover and will often choose to retreat within the plants, rarely to come out. In my opinion, a gourami living and moving about within a thick wall of plants is a happy gourami.

This fish is an omnivore, readily accepting flake, frozen, dried and live foods. They will also spend the days happily picking at scraps of algae and other edible bits off of plant leaves and decorations within the tank..

 

 

Breeding:

The dwarf gourami is a bubblenest egglayer. The male constructs the bubblenest from bits of plants, algae and bubbles he produces with his mouth. The nest is thicker and higher reaching than many other gouramis. When the bubblenest is complete, he will wait for a gravid female to pass by and lure her under the nest. Gouramis have a rather beautiful mating display, where the female when ready will approach the male and nestle up to him, and he in turn will embrace her by wrapping himself around her. People that keep gouramis often refer to it as the mating dance. Up to 600 eggs can be produced and the male will gingerly tend to the nest, blowing new bubbles, inhaling eggs, wrigglers or fry and moving them to a more protected or stronger area of the nest and releasing them. The female has no place in rearing the young and should be removed from the tank to avoid the male from creating undue stress to her by protecting the nest against her. A male will protect against other labyrinth fish in the tank before he starts in on other fish. When the fry are free swimming, the male should also be removed because he himself will begin to eat the young that he has so skillfully tended to and protected.