Giant Gourami: The Magnificent Common Gourami
One of my favourite fishes is the Giant Gourami or Common Gourami (Osphronemus gorami). It is not the first fish I took care of but it is probably the most easiest large freshwater fish to keep. And I still have the first Giant Gourami.
Why do I like to take care of this fish?
First, The Giant Gourami has been succesfully cultured across South East Asia. This means that it is a food fish. Nothing wrong with that if you consider that in the Amazon they eat Discus and the occassional arowana. Plus, consider that the Tilapia is a cichlid; I onced set-up an aquarium for an NGO that had a Tilapia whose total length was around sixteen inches! It was a nice looking fish and probably nice to eat too. I have friends who have eaten their pet fish, one had Silver Arowana and the other had full-grown Pacus, both claim their pets were delectable.
Second, The Giant Gourami being the biggest member of the Labyrinth Fish family is sturdy. It was also omnivorous; It could eat almost anything. It provided no problem for the Aquarist, provided of course the basics (proper feeding, proper fish to water volume ratio and optimum water change).
Third, The Giant Gourami grows and grows.
Fourth, It is cheap at eighty pesos, less than two US dollars.
My first Giant Gourami was black. This is the common strain of the Giant Gourami. My recent purchase are two albino strains. There were four in the shop, I might go back and buy the remaining two.
A few years ago a friend told me they were sellig Giant Gouramis that had distinct red markings on its side. I do not know if these were injected or just abnormalities but they were a little bit expensive. According to my friend they were considered lucky fish.
Here is the picture of a juvenile. It measures around two to three inches. A word of warning though, you need a big aquarium or pond for this fish.
Additional information and pictures of the Giant Gourami:
Information about the Giant Gourami at Animal-world.com
Information about the Giant Gourami at Fish base
posted by juned at 16:12
4 Comments:
I am happy to find a giant gourami keeper. In my town there are only few fully grown giant gourami, most of them perish at a very tender age. I have two such fish of seven inch each, both are albino and aggressive. I feed them with dry food(pellets,blood worms) and prawns, sometimes they have banana. Is it safe to keep any other fish with them? please suggest.
I have been facing problem with my fish, one of them is bullying the other. however this occurs only when i feed them. Is this a part of their normal behaviour? Is there any way to understand their sexes? My fish are seven months old and i do not feed them with any meat except prawns, is there any need to do so?
I have learnt from my experiences that giant gourami are very sturdy fish and eat anything served to them. Large water changes do not affect them. A diet consisting of vegeterian items is always good for them.
I just want to share with you that we have successfully bred giant gourami's in our fish pond in Bicol. We started with 8 fishes and now it's now over a hundred and counting...just last week we harvested 2 weighing around 6 kls each....
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