Freshwater Fish · Gouramis

Sparkling Gourami

Trichopsis pumila

The thumb-sized gourami you can actually hearIntermediate

Lifespan: 3-5 years
Size: Up to about 1.6 in
Social needs: Social; keep a group of five or six or more; quiet nano tankmates only
Time: 10-15 min daily; weekly water change
Cost: Low
Diet: Micropredator (micro-pellets, live/frozen daphnia, baby brine shrimp)

Overview

What is this animal?

The sparkling gourami is one of the smallest gouramis in the hobby, a labyrinth fish barely 1.4-1.6 in long from the still ditches, marshes, and rice paddies of Southeast Asia: the Mekong and Chao Phraya basins and the Malay Peninsula.
A brownish body spangled with rows of iridescent blue-green spots, red-and-blue-edged fins, and brilliant turquoise eyes give it its name.
Its party trick is real sound: displaying fish produce an audible croaking or clicking by snapping enhanced tendons in the pectoral fins, and a settled group will chatter at each other across the tank.

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Do not confuse it with the closely related croaking gourami, Trichopsis vittata, which grows to nearly twice the length, or with the honey and dwarf gouramis already familiar to community keepers, both of which are bigger, bolder fish.
This is a true nano species for a quiet, planted, dedicated setup.

The intermediate rating is not about fragile health, because they are reasonably hardy; it reflects that they starve, hide, and fade in the average busy community tank, and only show their colour, confidence, and voice when the whole aquarium is designed around them.

Temperament

Sparkling gouramis are peaceful, inquisitive, and endearingly interactive with each other, but they are timid with anything larger or faster than themselves.
Keep them in a group of five or six or more, because lone fish tend to stay hidden while a settled group spreads confidence and triggers the croaking displays the species is known for.

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Males spar with spread fins and audible clicks, circling each other in brief, theatrical contests that almost never cause damage in a planted tank.
Males also build small bubble nests, often tucked under a broad leaf rather than in open water.

The safest stocking is a species tank, or company on their own scale: chili rasboras, ember tetras, pygmy corydoras, and otocinclus work well, while barbs, bettas, larger gouramis, and anything boisterous will bully or simply out-eat them.
They may pick off shrimplets but generally coexist with adult cherry shrimp.

A good fit for

Keepers who want a characterful centrepiece for a small planted tank
Anyone charmed by the idea of a fish that audibly croaks
Quiet species tanks or small communities of equally small fish
Keepers ready to feed live and frozen micro-foods
Fans of natural, tannin-stained, leaf-litter aquascapes

Common mistakes to avoid

Adding them to a busy community where they hide and slowly starve
Standard flake and pellets being too large for their tiny mouths
Strong filter flow pinning them into corners
Cold room air over the surface harming the labyrinth organ
Keeping them alone or in too small a group, which leaves them shy and colourless
Escaping through small gaps in the lid

Enclosure

Minimum 15 gallons, for a group of 5

Cannot be kept alone. The minimum is 5, and the space above is for that group.

House a small group of five or six in a tank of at least 15 US gallons that is at least 18 in long, prioritising floor area and planted cover over height; a standard 24 x 12 x 12 in 15-gallon tank qualifies, and a 10-gallon does not.
Dense stem plants, leaf litter, and a layer of floating plants recreate the shaded, tannin-stained still water they come from and transform their behaviour.

Keep the water at 75-82°F, soft and slightly acidic to neutral with a pH around 6.0-7.5, and use gentle filtration such as a sponge filter, because flow that barely registers for other fish will pin these into the corners.

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Like all gouramis they gulp air at the surface with a labyrinth organ, so fit a tight lid that traps a layer of warm, humid air; cold room air over warm water is a classic way keepers damage them.

Cycle the tank fully before they arrive and keep ammonia and nitrite at zero, with a weekly partial water change.
Labyrinth fish will jump through equipment gaps, so close off cable cutouts in the lid.

Check your enclosure

Supplies

Setup

Tank and stand
Filter
Heater and thermometer
Substrate, plants and decor
Liquid test kit
Dechlorinator and starter supplies

Ongoing

Quality tropical flake (crushed fine for sparkling and honey gouramis)
Floating and slow-sinking micro-pellets
Frozen bloodworm, brine shrimp and daphnia
Frozen or live baby brine shrimp, cyclops or microworms (for sparkling gouramis)
Spirulina or vegetable flake
Fine net for removing leftovers

Safe substrate: Fine, smooth sand · Smooth, rounded fine gravel (not for loaches or sand-sifting cichlids; sand is better for corydoras) · Bare bottom (quarantine and grow-out only)

Work out the cost

Care routine

Daily

Check temperature and equipment
Feed
Head-count and look everyone over

Every few days

Check the air layer above the waterevery 3 days
Top up evaporationevery 3 days

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Weekly

Test the water
Water change and gravel vacuum
Wipe the front glass only

Every few weeks

Trim and thin the plantsevery 2 weeks

Monthly

Check supplies and reagent dates
Replace or recharge chemical media, if you use any (skip it in a blackwater tank)
Rinse the filter media

Health review: Quarterly review with a surface-air check, every 3 months

Tools

Is your enclosure big enough?Check your measurements against the recommended size What will it cost?Setup, monthly and over its whole life, itemised Is this ammonia reading dangerous?Works out the toxic part from your pH and temperature

Care in depth

Diet

Micropredator (micro-pellets, live/frozen daphnia, baby brine shrimp)

Sparkling gouramis are micropredators that hunt tiny invertebrates in the wild, and their mouths are genuinely small, so standard flake and community pellets are often literally too big.
Use crushed flake or true micro-pellets as the staple and expect some individuals to refuse dry food entirely at first.

Condition and colour come from small live and frozen foods: daphnia, baby brine shrimp, microworms, cyclops, and finely chopped bloodworm.
A tank with leaf litter and mature plants also grows the microfauna they graze between meals.

Feed small amounts once or twice daily and watch that every fish actually eats, because they are slow, deliberate feeders that lose out to anything quicker.
Slow starvation next to faster tankmates is one of the most common ways this species fails.

Health

Signs of good health, and the common problems

This is a fairly robust little fish with no strong link to the iridovirus that plagues farmed dwarf gouramis, which makes sourcing less fraught than for that species.
Most losses trace back to husbandry: chilled surface air, strong flow, poor water quality, or simply being outcompeted for food.

Quarantine new arrivals for a few weeks, since wild-caught and farm imports can carry parasites, and internal worms show as a hollow belly despite eating.
Watch for clamped fins, faded spangling, and constant hiding as early stress signals in a fish that should be out patrolling the plants.

At this size a healthy lifespan is around 3-5 years, and stable temperature, clean water, and a low-stress tank are what get them there.
There is little margin for error in medicating a fish this small, so prevention beats treatment.

Is this urgent?

6 warning signs and how fast to act, 3 of them right away

In a fish tank the patient is usually the water. Test before you treat: dosing a healthy tank for a disease it does not have makes things worse.

Go now

Any detectable ammonia or nitrite in a stocked tankLarge water change now with dechlorinated, temperature-matched water. Stop feeding. Test again in 12 hours. Both are directly toxic. How toxic the ammonia reading is depends on pH and temperature, so the same number can be harmless or lethal.

Now

Fish gasping at the surface with fast gill movement, or crowding the filter outflowIncrease surface movement now (gently in a betta or gourami tank, without creating a strong current), then test the water. Either the oxygen has crashed or the gills are being chemically burned. Both are hours-scale problems. Bettas, gouramis and corydoras rise to gulp air as part of normal breathing; the warning is constant gulping, fast gill movement, or the whole group hanging at the top.

Now

Sudden deaths, more than one fish in a dayTest ammonia, nitrite, nitrate and temperature before doing anything else. Do not add medication yet. Multiple simultaneous deaths usually point at the water or the equipment rather than a pathogen, so rule those out first.

Now

Today

Flashing: repeatedly scraping against decor or substrateTest the water, then look closely for parasites. Irritation is either chemical or parasitic; the test tells you which before you medicate.

Today

White salt-grain spots over the body and finsBegin the appropriate treatment today and check the temperature. The parasite's life cycle is temperature-driven, and it multiplies with every cycle you wait.

Today

Soon

Clamped fins, hiding, or refusing food for more than two daysTest the water and review recent changes. Usually the earliest visible sign of a parameter drifting.

A few days

Never add a new fish to a tank that is not fully cycled, and never treat blind. A test kit is cheaper than the fish.

This is general guidance for a healthy adult, not a diagnosis. An exotics vet who knows your animal always overrides it, and the time to find one is before you need one.

Bedding and substrate

3 safe, 4 with a caveat, 2 to avoid

Substrate in an aquarium is a filter as much as a floor. Most of the biology lives in and on it.

Safe

Fine, smooth sandCorrect for corydoras, kuhli loaches, eartheaters such as rams and acaras, and anything else that sifts or burrows. Barbels wear away on sharp gravel.

safe

Smooth, rounded fine gravel (not for loaches or sand-sifting cichlids; sand is better for corydoras)Rinse thoroughly before use. Grain size should be too large to swallow and too small to trap food. Kuhli loaches need sand to burrow into and rams and acaras sift mouthfuls of it; bronze and panda corydoras manage on smooth fine gravel, but sterbai corydoras need sand.

safe

Bare bottom (quarantine and grow-out only)Legitimate for quarantine and grow-out tanks. Easy to clean, but it holds far less biological filtration, and it is no long-term home for burrowing loaches or sand-sifters.

safe

With a caveat

Crushed coral or aragoniteDeliberately raises hardness and pH. Correct for rift-lake cichlids, wrong for soft-water species.

with a caveat

Aquasoil for planted tanksExcellent for plants, but most active soils soften the water and pull pH and KH down for months, and many leach ammonia for the first weeks. Right for soft-water species; wrong for hard-water animals (livebearers, rainbowfish, goldfish, and snails, whose shells erode in soft, acidic water) unless you test GH and KH and remineralise. Cycle around it; do not stock into it.

with a caveat

Very deep sand bedsAnaerobic pockets form below about 2 inches in still sand. Either keep it shallow or keep it stirred.

with a caveat

Painted or coated gravelUsually fine, but coatings chip. Test a handful in a jar for a week first.

with a caveat

Never

Sharp or angular gravel with bottom-dwellersWears down barbels and leads to infection in corydoras and loaches.

never

Anything containing metal, limestone of unknown origin, or shells in a soft-water tankSlowly alters chemistry in ways that are hard to diagnose later.

never

This is our general list for freshwater fish. We have not built one specific to Gouramis yet.

Top resources for more info

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