Moonlight Gourami Stats:
Minimum Tank Size: 29 Gallons (110 Litres)
Care Level: Moderately Hard
Water Conditions: 5.5-7.5 pH and Soft to Medium
Temperature: 73-82 °F (24-28°C)
Maximum Size: 5 inches (13 cm)
The moonlight gourami (trichopodus micrlepis), also known as the moonbeam gourami, is small labyrinth fish, that remains one of the most popular gouramis in the hobby today. It is native to Cambodia and Vietnam, and in recent years it has become established as an invasive species in Columbia and Thailand.
In the wild, it primarily tends to inhabit swamps and small bodies of water, but can also be found in nearly any environments that offers shallow and slow moving water. It prefers areas with dense vegetation, and it is most at home lurking among aquatic plants.
Moonlight gouramis are a labyrinth fish, which means that they have a lung like organ that allows them to breathe air. Because of this, they can survive in low oxygen environments that would kill almost any other fish, and can even survive for hours out of water (if they remain moist). Don’t be alarmed if you see your fish gulping in air at the surface, as this is normal behavior – even in well maintained, oxygen rich tanks.
The moonlight gourami is a small fish, and will usually grow to a maximum of 5 inches (13 cm) in the home aquarium. It’s not unusual for one to live 4 years or more in the home aquarium, and there have been some unconfirmed reports of them living past 6 years – though 5 years is far more realistic.
Housing
Moonlight gouramis need to be housed in at least a 29 gallon (110 litre) tank, and that size vastly increases if you plan on keeping more than one male gourami together. Males are incredibly territorial, and if you keep two males in a small tank together, you’ll usually end up with two fish with grievous wounds – which can often prove fatal.
Like with most other gouramis, it’s best to keep several females and one male in a tank. If you are dead set on keeping more than one male, you may need a tank as large as 75 gallons (340 litres), though you can sometimes get away with 45 gallons (205 litres) or larger.
It can also be difficult to find good tankmates for moonlight gouramis, and you have to balance the fact that they can mercilessly bully smaller fish, but they themselves fall prey to fin nippers. It’s best to keep them with fish close to their own size, while avoiding any that are known to nip fins.
When choosing a filter for these fish, you should always attempt to minimize any current in the tank. Moonlight gouramis do not do well in even moderate current, and they may end up being blown around the tank by a more powerful filter. Any tank containing this fish is a prime candidate for a canister filter, but you can also use hang on back filters if you lower the flow output, or plan your tank layout so that it deflects the current.
To make these fish comfortable, their tank should also be heavily planted. A heavily planted tank with open areas for swimming mimics their natural habitat, and will help them to feel at ease in the tank Some of the best plants to use are Amazon swords, hygrophila polysperma, water sprite and Java ferns.
Feeding
In the wild, moonlight gouramis eat insects, invertebrates, algae and small amounts of plant matter. This diet should be recreated as closely as possible in the home aquarium, and this can be accomplished through regular feedings of a high quality flake food and live foods. One of the best foods that you can provide for them is Hikari Micro Wafers
When it comes to live foods, their favorites are mosquito larvae (illegal to culture to in some areas), bloodworms, blackworms, daphnia, adult brine shrimp and wingless fruit flies. If you don’t have access to live food, then you can provide them with frozen food, and they will happily accept frozen bloodworms, blackworms, daphnia and brine shrimp.
Breeding
Breeding moonlight gouramis is relatively easy, and they will often breed on their own if you provide the right environment for them. The first thing that you need to do is make sure that you have a male and female. While both males and females look superficially similar, the females will have a more rounded belly than the males and will have a rounded dorsal fin, while the males have a pointed dorsal fin.
After you have ensured that you have a male and female, you need to be set up the breeding tank .The water should be soft and acidic, and it’s best to use a sponge filter, since the tank needs as little current as possible. It should also include significant amounts of floating vegetation, and barring that, you can provide fake floating plants or even the bottom half of a Styrofoam cup.
It’s absolutely key that some floating material be provided in the tank, since moonlight gouramis are bubblenest builders and males often need something that they can use as an anchor for the nest. The male will construct the nest out of hundreds of bubbles, and it’s not unusual to see nests that are 4-5 inches in diameter.
To start the breeding, lower the temperature of the breeding tank to the mid 70s, and introduce the male to the tank. Both the male and female should be conditioned at this point, feeding them a steady diet of live or frozen foods.
After a few days of conditioning, place the female in a location where the male can clearly see her. This can be done in a variety of ways, and the most common ways are either by using a tank divider, or by placing the females tank next to the males tank. You can also use a breeding net, but the small size of most commercial breeding nets just tend to stress out the female.
Once the female is in view of the male, spend the next few days slowly raising the temperature of the tank, until it reaches the low 80s. The male should begin constructing the bubble nest at this point, and if he doesn’t, try a large water change which will often trigger the behavior.
After the bubble nest has been constructed, the male will start to actively court the female. After this has commenced, release the female into the tank, and the courting will continue in earnest. Breeding will usually occur shortly after the female has been introduced to the tank, with the male herding the female under the bubblenest, where he will then curl around her.
Once the male has curled around her, the female will release her eggs, which will be fertilized by the male. After each mating, the male will spend several minutes scouring the substrate, carefully placing each eggs he finds into the bubblenest.
After several matings, the female should be removed as the male starts to guard the nest. Anything approaching the nest – the female included, will be attacked after the mating has been completed. The male will continue to guard the nest until the fry hatch and become free swimming. This usually takes about 5-7 days, and once they are free swimming, the male should be removed.
The fry should be fed three times a day, and will only accept infusoria or green water to begin with. They can then be moved onto baby brine shrimp, or commercially available fry foods. While it takes a bit more effort and planning, most aquarists prefer to use newly hatched brine shrimp.
I’m really enjoying your articles. I’m learning a lot about the care and breeding of many fish. I grew up taking care of my aunt’s 75 gallon, and never really did anything with it but let nature take its course. My favourites have always been the Pink Gourami and the Black Skirt Tetra. Now, 40 years later, I want to start a 75 gallon tank, and am serious about care and breeding. Nothing is better for getting blood pressure and stress under control like an aquarium. That is why I had my aunt’s – I had high bp as a teen and an old doctor told me to get an aquarium.
I really wish you would add the Pink and Green Gouramis (Kissers). There are dwarf of them as well, but I’m interested in the full size. Also, what size should the breeder tank be, and what size should the tank the female is kept in be during his viewing of her, and when raising the temp in the breeding tank, should it also be raised in her tank so there is no shock when she is put in the breeding tank? Since I plan to breed the male with more than one female, do I need separate breeding tanks. If not do I need each female in their own viewing tank? Can he view them all, and I introduce them and let him breed one at a time? Sorry for all of the questions, but only I only have experience with the live bearers.
So the fry will not accept flakes. You offer a link for everything but infusoria. What is that? What is green water?
That’s a really amazing story about your experience with aquariums when you were younger. I really enjoy stories like that about how aquariums make people’s lives better and improve their health. And I’ll definitely add those two fish to my list of articles (My wife just had a baby and I have a big backlog to catch up on).
As for breeding, kissing gouramis are a little different to breed than most other anatabids. They don’t exhibit any parental behavior and are egg scatterers, often scattering the eggs over live plants. I would start with a 29 gallon tank with a female and condition both fish within sight of each other for at a week or two. Once you introduce the male, you should remove both of them as soon as they spawn.
Green water is simply algae filled water. You can get that by placing open jars of sunny ledge, with a bit of plant fertilizer in it. Stir the water daily to keep the algae suspended in the water.
As for infusoria, it’s tiny organisms that eat bacteria. To get infusoria, place an open container with treated water in a sunny location with a lettuce leaf and some fish food in it. Once it turns cloudy, you have bacteria. Shortly afterwards, it should turn pink; That means you have infusoria. You can then feed it to the fish using a turkey baster.
Congratulations on the baby. Good luck with the back log.
Thank you so much for explaining the green water and infusoria. I kind of thought that green water was algae water, but wanted to make sure. As far as the infusoria, well, I learned something new today, as I had never heard of that before. When you say treated water, I trust you mean aquarium water, preferably cycled water. For the fish food, I trust you mean frozen or fresh worms and not flakes.
I was planning on using a 10 or 20 gallon tank only as a breeding tank, but I guess I could get a 29 or 30.
As I said, I plan on raising my fish in a 75 gallon. I was mistaken: my aunt’s tank was a 55 gallon. I raised a lot of fish in there over 10 years (about 3-5 groups, to be precise, as I was a child and had no experience or guidance). I did enjoy it, and within a year of just watching the fish twice a day for 30 min, instead of tv, my blood pressure was normal. Now, I’m almost 50, and my health not so good, and I remember how much I enjoyed the aquarium and the peace it gave me, so I wish to do it again, and maybe even use it to earn a little cash by using them to breed & sell fish (my faves), plants, snails, the African mini frogs (I had those to), some shrimp, trumpet snails (had those to & loved them), and other things. I plan to have more than one tank. I know I won’t get rich doing it, but I’ll be happy if I just make up for the cost of my hobby.
Thanks for the congrats, and hopefully this helps with your health.
Treated water in this case just means water without chlorine or chloramine. Aquarium water will likely get the process started more quickly, though. And flake food would be fine: You just need to provide food to the bacteria. As for the aquarium, go with what you have at first until you master it. 20 is a bit small, but will do in a pinch for breeding.
I don’t know if you saw it, but I recently wrote an article around breeding fish to make money. http://aquariumtidings.com/make-money-breeding-fish/
An if you really want to make up the cost of the hobby, start growing your own food. By culturing live foods like mosquito, and growing vegetables like lettuce and zucchini, you can really cut down on your costs. It makes it a lot easier to cover the costs of the hobby. Good luck with the breeding and keep me updated on how it goes.
A very informative guide. I already have giant gourami and was wondering if I could add these in addition. I dont want my giant gourami to bully these small guys.