How to Keep Kissing Gouramis? A Complete Guide to Care in Captivity

Kissing gouramis have no fixed breeding season under captive conditions, and breeding them is not difficult. It is best to keep them in pairs and feed them generously to encourage breeding.

Males and females are hard to tell apart, and juveniles are almost impossible to sex. In adults, the male's anal fin is generally broad and long and the body looks somewhat slender; the female's anal fin is narrow, the body is broad and thick, and the abdomen bulges slightly. When the female reaches sexual maturity, her abdomen swells with eggs, which is very obvious when viewed from above the tank. Kissing gouramis are egg-laying fish with external fertilization, and generally fish with a body length of over 20cm should be used as broodstock. Breed them in a larger aquarium of at least 80×40×40cm, using 5 to 7-day-old water, with the water temperature between 25 and 27°C, a pH of 6.8-7.4, and a hardness of 9-11, and place a layer of floating aquatic plants on the water surface in the tank. The male keeps swimming around the female, and when the right position is reached, he wraps around the female in a "U" shape and squeezes and embraces her; after the female lays eggs, the male immediately releases sperm. The female can lay 500 to 10,000 eggs each time, averaging 3000.

Its eggs are floating eggs, drifting on the surface layer like oil, and the floating aquatic plants can keep them from being accidentally swallowed by the parent fish. After spawning is complete, the parent fish can be removed and the eggs artificially incubated. Fry hatch in 20 to 24 hours, and 2 to 3 days later, once the fry can swim, they must be fed plenty of infusoria, otherwise they will starve to death. After another 2 to 3 days, feed them small red worms for 3 to 4 days, after which larger worms can be fed. At 15 to 20 days, the rapidly growing fry should be divided into two or three tanks to maintain a higher survival rate. Sometimes a single brood can yield more than 9000 surviving fry, and they reach sexual maturity in about a year. Their lifespan can reach 6 to 7 years.