TIFFANY the GOURAMI

Aquarialand’s giant Gourami is a female named Tiffany. She has been called Tiffany ever since one of our customers suggested that she be named after that customer's 9 year old daughter.

Tiffany (our gourami) comes from the rivers of Thailand and surrounding countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Gourami’s are vegetarians and love strawberries, peas, salads such as lettuce, cherry tomatoes and spinach. She also loves mangoes, bananas, custard apples and lychees. And she hates fruits that are not ripe. If the strawberries are a little green, she spits them out and either goes into a corner or just refuses to put her trust in the next piece of fruit on offer.

She is smart enough to tell if we're actually holding food in our hand or not. If we are, she is gentle enough to bring her open mouth out of the water to be fed. She gets angry when we bluff her and do not give her the food she came up for so we don't do it often.

Tiffany dislikes kids putting their hands against her tank. She can hear loud noises so we do not allow anyone to bang on the glass. She doesn't seem to trust kids because of her past experiences with them!!!

She lives in a huge range of water conditions but her ideal water quality is soft water where Melbourne water is exactly that. Temperature range is around 26c and obviously requires enough water to dart around from time to time.

An interesting thing about Tiffany is that she does not require oxygen rich water because like you and I, she can drown. These fish over time evolved a labyrinth system where they surface to the top and take in a deep breath that is then mixed in their blood stream. If they are unable to get to the surface for air, they will drown and die. Another interesting thing is their life expectancy. Our Gourami was hatched from egg in 1994 and is regarded as a teenager!  The eggs take only 24 hours to hatch and are guarded by the male. He will kill anything that comes near his nest including the female once depleted of eggs. If they dislike a fish in a tank, they will not forget that fish and will eventually kill it. Our Tiffany has turned against several of our fish and killed them. 

There have been reports they will live for 50+ years but many captive Gourami live for around 25-30 years.

Not bad for a FISH...