Koi Fish Information Centre

The truth is that gouramis, as a whole, are aggressive fish, singly, in pairs, in groups. When there is more than one, it is likely the aggression will be more between the gouramis than with anything else in the tank. As the number reduces, the aggression will spread to other tank inhabitants, and with a singleton, definitely toward the other inhabitants.
Your giving us misinformation did not help your case. The truth of the matter is that when sizing a tank, you really need to look at the adult size of the fish, and not the current size. While the 20 gallon would be a good size for the opaline, as a single fish, I’d not try to place a pair in there. I’d want at least a 30 gallon for a pair (meaning 2 of either sex rather than a true pair of male and female) of them, to give each enough room to grow and get away from one another, if needed, which also means your décor needs to be designed for that sort of event.
You have made a simple novice mistake, well, maybe not so novice–we all do it from time to time, by getting a fish without a good knowledge of its needs and behaviors. There is also a lot of misinformation floating around this hobby, and it gets propagated like the old saying of the blind leading the blind. That is one of the purposes of this list, setting people on the right path. We do face some problems in doing so. This medium is not the best for transferring the feeling of what we are saying. Many clues humans rely upon are missing here. The tone of voice, the body gestures, and such. What you read on the other end may not read as we are saying it. Another factor is that we see more than our share of mistakes here, and it does get tiresome to by typing the same thing over and over again. I know that I am pretty busy, being away from home 12-14 hours a day, then doing what I need to do around here, plus the work I need to do to keep my business going, etc. That does not allow me a lot of time to spend here, so most of my answers tend to be short and sweet. Depending on how I am feeling, I try to inject some humor, which may or may not reach the people reading.
There are a few of us here who have a lot of years in this hobby. Some of that group were around before the nitrogen cycle and its importance were known. (There is another Yahoo! list that has a lot of old timers on it and they talk about the history of the hobby. One fellow is the last known living hobbyist to have worked with William T. Innes. In case you have never heard the name before, Innes is widely revered in the hobby for his work done roughly in the years between the ’20’s and ’50’s, spreading the gospel of Fishkeeping with fairly accurate information.) between those guys, there is a few hundred years of experience with fish of all types.
So keep reading and asking questions, and don’t take everything so literally.
\Steve//

Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society