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Description
The pearl gourami is one of the most elegant fish you can put in a community tank, and one of the least recommended for what it offers. Its body is covered in pearly speckling that looks hand-painted, a dark line runs along its flank and, in courtship, its chest and throat blaze orange.
Its ventral fins have become two long, sensitive filaments that it moves constantly to explore whatever is in front of it, like antennae. It is a detail that draws you in: it spends its time feeling plants, glass and tank mates.
It reaches 12 cm, so it needs a genuinely long tank. In exchange it gives you the opposite of a nervous shoal: a large, unhurried fish with presence, moving calmly through the middle and upper zones. It is an excellent counterpoint if you already have tetras or rasboras darting about.
It shares a family with the betta and also breathes air through a labyrinth organ, so it needs free access to the surface.
Behavior
Peaceful and, for its size, surprisingly shy. Newly introduced it hides for days; with floating plants to diffuse the light it comes out far sooner.
There is some territoriality between males, more display than fighting: they turn sideways and spread their fins. In a short tank that can escalate; in a 100 cm one they coexist without trouble. One male with two or three females is ideal.
It lives well with medium tetras, rasboras, corydoras, otocinclus, bristlenose and kuhli loaches. It is one of the few large fish genuinely safe in a planted community tank.
Avoid housing it with tiger barbs and any fin nipper, because its ventral filaments are an irresistible target and without them it loses its main exploratory organ; male bettas, which read it as a rival on size and fins; and large territorial cichlids.
With shrimp: adults are usually safe, but this is a 12 cm fish with a decent mouth: fry and small shrimp disappear.
And a welcome detail: with its unhurried nature and habit of inspecting everything, it occupies the upper part of the tank, which usually sits empty in community setups.
Habitat
Trichopodus leerii lives in swamps, peat bogs and slow waters of the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo. The water is acidic, soft and darkened by tannins, with the surface covered in floating vegetation and very little flow.
That plant cover is the key to its behaviour. A pearl gourami in a bare, brightly lit tank spends the day hidden and pale; the same fish under a roof of floating plants comes out, explores and shows the pearly speckling you bought it for.
Like the betta, it comes from still, oxygen-poor water: no strong current, and free access to the surface to breathe. A powerful filter in a tall tank bothers it more than you would think.
Details
🌊 Water parameters
🐠 Minimum tank size
Breeding
Like the betta, it builds a bubble nest at the surface, but reinforces it with plant fragments, which gives it a sturdier, messier look.
The courtship is among the most striking you will see: the male flushes orange across chest and throat, displays sideways and guides the female to the nest. He then tends the spawn alone, just like his cousin.
During that period his temperament changes and he turns territorial towards anything that comes near. In a community tank, give him space or separate the others; the nest is at the surface and he defends it with determination.
The fry are tiny and need infusoria before they can manage brine shrimp nauplii. It is not a difficult breed, but it does need a separate tank if you want them to make it.
Diet
Omnivorous and undemanding, one of the easiest fish to feed.
- Staple: quality flake or pellets, which it takes without fuss.
- Supplement: frozen daphnia, brine shrimp and mosquito larvae, two or three times a week.
- Plant matter: some spirulina in the diet does it good.
And it has one habit that makes it especially useful: it eats hydra and planaria, the tiny pests that appear in overfed tanks and that almost no other fish will touch. If you have had a hydra outbreak in a shrimp tank, a pearl gourami is one of the few biological solutions available — though you will need to move the small shrimp out first.
It feeds slowly and at the surface, so in a tank with fast fish make sure it gets its share.
Plan your next aquarium
Is this fish right for you? Plan a suitable aquarium before setting it up.