[quote=”humike7″ post=806]Thanks for the response guys[/quote]
Mike: I am a guy, many others too. But Helene, Nathea, Lisbeth and others who write here are not…:)
I don’t want to keep fish in a bare tank as this type of fish keeping feels just like keeping chickens in battery cages (…)
I think this is the wrong comparison. Keeping licorice gouramis densely crammed in a tank like neon tetras or barbs would be comparable to a battery cage. Licorice always like to hide. Therefore, the question whether to keep them in a planted tank or not is different. They need structures “to lean against”; they are no fish of the free water. But the decisive question for them is not plants or not plants (that maybe important for us) but structures or no structures (e.g. wood, dead leaves) resp. caves or no caves. In their home territories they live between dead leaves on the groung and stems of emerging grasses in the lower parts of the riparian banks.
The aquarium test is breeding. I prefer using some plants in that situation, too, as you do. But it’s no battery cage situation if you do not, but provide a single pair with what they really need: structures.
As the other points are concerned, I am with you.