# Are opaline gourami a threat to my current fish?



## SonicNonsense (Dec 23, 2010)

Hi all, 

Seeking a little bit of the collective genius out there. 

I saw some opaline gourami at my LFS at the weekend and am sorely tempted to get them as they're really quite large and very beautiful. However, I've seen some articles that say they can be aggressive when larger. 

I recently bought a shoal of 6 denison barb (red line torpedo barb) which are quite small at the moment. A few months ago, I had some of these harassed to death by my red tailed black shark (who has since been rehomed), and I'm obviously not keen on it happening again. 

What's the thinking on the safety here?

Cheers!
SN


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## NeonShark666 (Dec 13, 2010)

I have kept this type of Gourami for years and never had any problems with them. If you have the room, I would get two. Fish bullies would usually prefer to harass one of their own. They usually take care of themselves pretty well in a community tank. I find them to be tough and long lived. I have usually kept them in a 55G tank. I wouldn't keep them in a 10G tank, they get too large. I'm supprised your Barbs harassed your Shark, Sharks are usually the ones doing the harassing. Larger Sharks seem are able to take care of themselves. Did you have places for the Shark to hide (caves, Plants)? Red-tailed Sharks like to hide, rush out and eat and then rush back to their hiding place.


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## SonicNonsense (Dec 23, 2010)

Good to hear that the opalines are fairly peaceful. 

It was the shark to killed the last lot of Denisons, not the other way around, so having gotten rid of him, I'm just paranoid about it happening again. 

LFS has 4 large opalines in on offer (4 for £12). I imagine they're cheap as they've very big, so a lot of smaller aquariua wouldn't be able to take them. I have a 500 litre setup though, so hopefully 4 bigguns should be ok!


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