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How to feed Sparkling gouramis?

M

Matti

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12 Aug 2021
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Location
Helsinki, Finland
Hi,
got some Sparkling gouramis to my 55 nano junglescape. Perfect fish for my tank but kind of stupid when it comes to food. Don't eat flakes from the surface. They eat the Hikari vibra bites, but the bites fall too fast to the bottom, don't find them there. They like live Artemia, but I cannot feed them Artemia every day. Any advice?
 
Could try something like one of the smaller grade Golden Pearl diets which should float about longer especially if you turn the filter off for a bit.
 
Mine will take high quality dry foods if I soak them in garlic and put them in a feeding tray – I make up a few days worth, and prefer to mix dry foods, ground in a pestle (the garlic is just if you feel in a Good Life mood) and keep it in a tub or jar. They are quite happy to feed off the bottom if there's a feeding dish, even though they tend to hunt at the surface. They also take freeze dried cyclops and live brine shrimp. They sometimes take frozen brine shrimp, and some take frozen bloodworm, if they feel greedy. Mine have been breeding regularly over the past 3 months, in a community tank. I'm unsure if the live baby brine made a difference to that.
 
Mine seem to like the micro fluval bug bites, they sink but usually slowly enough for the gouramis to get them. Amazon product ASIN B07194GD1F
Darrels grindal worms is a good suggestion.

Black worms would be another good choice and even if these did find their way to the substrate the sight of them wriggling around would more than likely entice them to go down and feed.
 
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I meant to say, the high quality food I use is made by TA Aquaculture, recommended by someone on here.
 
Soak them in garlic?
 
My problem is that I cannot feed them live food daily, artemia or worms. An other issue is they've kind of dissapeared lately. My theory is they are hunting baby shrimps in the rotala jungles of my scape. Or just died of hunger.
 
Matti said:
Soak them in garlic?
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It's a tip I picked up on here, or some similar platform. Garlic is great for a fish's immune systems and they like it. Simply grind up some dry food – not flake – in a pestle, cut up a single piece of garlic, pour some boiling water over the garlic, then mix it up until you have a thick paste. Make enough for a few days and keep it in a jar, in the fridge. I mix different kinds of food together. The sparkling gourami will feed on this in a dish, whereas they won't touch a large solid pellet of dry food. My peacock goby and Cory's will all take this. If the paste is thick enough then it goes into the dish without much mess. My fish don't eat the garlic itself, so I don't pout that in, but the blending benefits them. Obviously live food is better, but not everyone can keep a constant supply of that. I expect you could also follow the ice cube route with this approach, but I've never tried that. I do like to mix different foods together, feels like it gives the fish variety. The only fish I give flake to are my ricefish, but frankly they'd eat anything. Some of mine disappear, especially when there's bubble nests on the go, but they come and take food from the dish when things are quiet. They are very good at hiding and it's a bit disconcerting. Try the feeding dish and blend of dry food and see if they don't sneak a meal.
 
Matti said:
My problem is that I cannot feed them live food daily, artemia or worms.
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That's fine, I don't feed my fish live food on a daily basis, once a week is fine. Can you manage that?
Matti said:
An other issue is they've kind of dissapeared lately. My theory is they are hunting baby shrimps in the rotala jungles of my scape.
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Sparkling gourami will hunt, its in their genetics, we can try and suppress this, alas we will fail.
Matti said:
Or just died of hunger.
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Maybe you should ask folks on this forum what they feed these fish?
 
Mine have never eaten at the surface like normal labyrinth fish, they are tiny hunters that hunt in the overgrowth just below the surface.

My sparkling gouramis love the tiny bug bites and always come to the front for it. They will eat it from the bottom, along with sinking loach wafers too if they are hungry (and if the food doesn't go on sand the same colour as the food). They do of course also love live food, and ESPECIALLY tiny baby shrimps if they can get them.... Annoyingly.

I've also found that some tend to disappear and die off never to be seen again in the first few weeks. I've had 2 groups of 4 and each time 1 died in the first day (both times were new in the shop as ordered in for me). They are also quite mean with eachother, and seem quite fragile which isn't a great mix lol, they are quite good at killing eachother in smaller tanks. Even the females are quite nasty. They're funny tho!

They are very smart so they should get used to your feeding soon, maybe put in some big bites with the live food the next few times you feed that so they start to associate it, that trick usually works quite well on picky but intelligent fish for me. I also find it helps to sprinkle the good above an area with lots of plants so the food falls on/amongst the plants and they eat it from there rather than the substrate.
 
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It's true they are rather moody and vulnerable. Today mine hung out together mid tank, having been in their various corners since they started breeding. No idea why they held a meeting, maybe swapping mates? They do make a fuss about food. Mine are now ignoring freeze dried brine but adore live brine. They will pick at the garlic mush food in the feeding dish, with their noses held. Mine bully the peacock goby, which are double their size, in terms of territory, whenever they have a bubble nest. They have attempted to breed many times but I have only managed to get 2 fry into a proper juvenile state.
 
I picked up 2 sparkling gouramis recently. I had the female in with my chili rasboras, and the male temporarily separated. The female learned quickly from the chilis to eat the bug bite powder, but the male was a pain to feed by himself. I swapped them over and now they both eat very well. The chilis even taught a wild caught licorice gourami to eat bug bites. I hatch out baby brine shrimp maybe 2-3 times a month, and they'll all gladly take this on too ( Sometimes with the filter off if necessary)
 
OllieTY said:
I picked up 2 sparkling gouramis recently. I had the female in with my chili rasboras, and the male temporarily separated. The female learned quickly from the chilis to eat the bug bite powder, but the male was a pain to feed by himself. I swapped them over and now they both eat very well. The chilis even taught a wild caught licorice gourami to eat bug bites. I hatch out baby brine shrimp maybe 2-3 times a month, and they'll all gladly take this on too ( Sometimes with the filter off if necessary)
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You could rent out those chillis as trainers for reluctant sparklers.
 
OllieTY said:
The chilis even taught a wild caught licorice gourami to eat bug bites.
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Hi,
I really fancy keeping either a few Licorice or Samurai Gouramis, but I can't commit to 24/7 live food offerings. Did you manage to wean yours on to prepared and frozen foods at all and did/are they thriving?
I can manage live once or twice a week but have other commitments also.
Thanks!
 
My licorice gourami will eat ground up Bug Bites now, but as I said, she only learned from watching the chili rasboras going bananas every feeding time. There are still days where she will just sit at the surface waiting for baby brine though, so I feed both. She refuses frozen foods. They really are a specialist fish, and they deserve it too considering their status in the wild. I would stick to single species or quiet biotope tanks for them really. samurai gouramis I have no experience with.

I can highly recommend sparkling gouramis too. They are so full of character for their diminutive size, and after the initial work, mine will eat anything.

ALL of this is just my limited experience though.....
bazz said:
I really fancy keeping either a few Licorice or Samurai Gouramis, but I can't commit to 24/7 live food offerings. Did you manage to wean yours on to prepared and frozen foods at all and did/are they thriving?
I can manage live once or twice a week but have other commitments also.
Thanks!
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I wonder, in a species only tank, do sparklers hang out? Mine almost never do; even the breeding pairs split up after mating, while the male chases everyone away. I'd assumed this behaviour holds in a species only so, once beyond being juveniles, they would tend to lurk in their own corners? I seem to recall when I was a kid my pearl gourami pair did stay together.
 
AlecF said:
I wonder, in a species only tank, do sparklers hang out? Mine almost never do; even the breeding pairs split up after mating, while the male chases everyone away. I'd assumed this behaviour holds in a species only so, once beyond being juveniles, they would tend to lurk in their own corners? I seem to recall when I was a kid my pearl gourami pair did stay together.
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I think different gourami definitely have different feistyness. Pearl and moonlight are really gentle but there are some really monsters in the family. I think I'd class sparkling as small but mighty. They can coexist in groups but there are lots of dominance struggles, which is why I think they are so cryptic.


My friend used to keep these in and he fed them live worms with one of those old fashioned worm feeders. He also had a small plastic pipe with some small holes drilled in it for the worms to wriggle out over a long period of time. I only babysat them once and I used a baby brine shrimp feeder like Paul b or reefcentral made. It worked really well but doesn't help with dry foods.
 
That's exactly right. I've never had a fish as wee that insists on its dominance in terms of territory, against larger rivals. I have M peacock goby and M sparklers that have goaded their respective species foes into the opposite ends of the tank, which means that one PG and one sparkler have to coexist in the same hiding spot. It makes for amusing intricate manoeuvres. The bubble nests get built in the middle of the tank, and then everyone has to hide.
 
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