Kissing Gourami (Helostoma temminckii)

Common Name:

Kissing Gourami.

Scientific Name:

Helostoma temminckii.

Family:

Helostomatidae.

Distribution:

Thailand to Indonesia.

Size:

12 inches, but 8 inches is regularly reported as the max for aquarium specimens, though this may be due to them being kept in inappropriate condition.

Diet:

They are big fans of algae that are able to filter feed on zoo- and phytoplankton. They eat a lot and need to be fed a lot of vegetable-based foods with standard aquarium fare on the side.

Water Temperature:

72 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (22-30 degrees Celsius).

Water Chemistry:

Not important, just make sure to acclimate them well. They can take acidities/alkalinities that are between 6 and 8. Almost any water chemistry will be okay for the long-term captive care of the Kissing Gourami.

pH:

6-8.

Life Span:

15+ years.

Description:

A laterally compressed large and deep fish with large, protruding lips (each having mobile teeth). These are yellow-eyed fish with clear fin "webbing" and their body color on the rays thereof. The major wild type is an olive green; iridescent fish while the other type (often still identified as H. rudolfi) is a matt pink color. The "Rudolfi-type" morph is the one more commonly seen in the hobby.

Behaviour:

Though they are large fish, they are more often shy and retiring than aggressive. They will, however, rise to challenges presented by their tank mates.

Though they school together as juveniles, they don't easily tolerate conspecifics once they reach maturity.

The kissing between conspecifics is, in actuality, a display of aggression between them.

Natural Conditions:

Slow moving, highly turbid and thickly vegetated waters in their home range. They need floating plant cover and thickets of plants. Keep H. temminckii well fed, though, as the plants may quickly become an all-you-can-eat salad bar.

Sexing:

Other than when the females are gravid and thusly plumper than the males, there are no morphological differences between male and female H. temminckii.

Breeding:

Elson and Lucanus state that adult females may lay up to 10,000 free-floating eggs. Some aquarists add broad leaves to the surface of the aquaria of Kissing Gouramis in order to get the eggs in a single location.

No parental care is provided for the eggs and fry (and both may be fair game for parental predation). Fry are as small as those of most other anabantoids and can only feed on the smallest of the live foods or microencapsulated foods designed for the fry of egg layers.

Minimum Tank Size:

55 gallons.

Miscellaneous Info :

Many books will list H. temminckii as a combination created by the collaboration of Cuvier and Valenciennes in 1831 but it is more accurately the only incarnation of a fish first described by Cuvier in 1829.