I'd always wanted an aquarium, and with my very first pay-check I went out and got the biggest bestest tank I could afford. Being only a casual job, it was only a small tank about 50cm across (don't know the gallon size but about 30 litres) but at least it came with all the accessories. I knew nothing about fish keeping, but set it all up with the filters & gravel etc, and waited two weeks for my next pay to get some fish.

Eventually I indulged myself and went for fresh water tropicals instead of standard cold water fish. My favourite were rose-belly kribenses (sp?) and they were bottom dwellers. I had a few loaches, which I never saw unless I cleaned out the gravel, a few angel fish which were the middle & upper dwellers, a few species I can't remember now, and a plain gourami which seemed to use the whole tank.

Nobody told me that fish should be about the same size to co-habitate nicely. In my ignorance, I had purchased the largest gourami in the display tank, and now it was terrorising all the other fish. Most of them had their fins nibbled and some had lost a few scales. Every time the bully gourami came near, they darted off to hide in the weeds.

At first, I tried to interfere in the fishy affair, tapping the tank every time the gourami looked like it was up to no good. Although I endeavoured not to feed it if it had been bad that day, it used to terrorize the other fish out of the way, and only when it had had its belly full would the other fish feel safe enough to eat the scraps. Despite the fact that the gourami was a stunning specimen, I slowly began to hate it for ruining the looks and lives of my other pets, and had no idea what to do to stop it harassing and haranguing the rest of the "crew".

My friend had a fish tank that measured over 2 metres. It was huge, and she'd done a great job setting it up. Being a big tank, her fish had grown into it, and she had some incredible example of fresh water tropicals, including some whopping great gouramis, plain and the more exotic sort. She and I hatched a cunning plan.

With Ghastly Gourami safely caught in a large plastic bag, I walked the kilometre to her place and dumped the sod into her whopping great tank, no doubt to the cheers of my other fish. It was by the far the smallest fish in her tank, and immediately hid itself behind the many rocks she had in there.

A week later, I collected my gourami. Its dorsal fin had been eaten down to little more than a stump, its tail fin was a ragged mess, and its other fins weren't looking much better. But from then on, it was the best behaved gourami I ever had. Who said you can't use psychology on a fish?

Copyright © Vicky Chapman
November 10, 1999