Years ago when I was living at home and had several aquariums, gouramis were always one of my favorite fish. I even had a gourami-specific tank with blue and gold opalines, pearls, kissing gouramis, and giant gouramis. I was determined to have one of every kind that my local store had available back then. They are still one of my favorite tropical fish today.

Late last year I spotted the words “pygmy gourami” on a tank in one of my local stores and thought, “What the heck is that?” There were none in the tank for me to look at, but I did a quick Google search when I got home and was not disappointed with the results. They are more aptly known as the “Sparkling Gourami.” They are also nicknamed the “Croaking Gourami” because they make noise! I had to have some!!

Since my plans were to move the white cloud minnows to the new 36 gallon, this meant my two 10 gallons would soon be available for new fish! Unfortunately, that fish store has never gotten the “pygmy” gouramis back in. I like to shop Aquatic Arts online but they’ve been out of stock too. I finally decided to give Ebay a try and got a group of 6 just before New Year’s Eve. And they were cheaper than what they would have been from the other places where I’d looked, even with the added cost of shipping!

While waiting for them to arrive, I started learning everything I could about them that I did not already know since I first learned about them. Sparkling Gouramis love floating plants and a well planted tank because they are a bit shy and like to hide. So I combined most of my plants from both 10 gallons into what I had nicknamed the “Reelfoot” tank. It already had spider wood, driftwood, and some large stones in it. It turned out great even though it was a quick effort to get ready for my new fish to arrive. Here’s a look at it and you can spot a couple of the gouramis in the middle:

All 6 of the gouramis arrived just fine and thankfully it was somewhat of a warm day that day. They even arrived a day early. I rushed home on my lunch hour so that I could start acclimating them. I was not disappointed! They are so tiny and cute, and very shy. Although they are a bit silver in color, they hide very well. I try to count all six each day since I’ve had them, but sometimes it can be tricky. Here is a close up pic I was able to take one night last week, and I actually got 3 of them in the picture:

I still have one 10 gallon tank open and it’s getting a makeover before I add fish. It has river pebbles in it that I don’t really like, so those will be replaced with substrate. You can see in the pic above that the “Reelfoot” tank has gravel in it. It’s a bit darker than the other tank and the plants have done fine in it so I’m keeping it. But the free tank will need new plants since I moved all of them into the other tank.

As for fish I’m thinking about Scarlet Badis!