[Jacob]

I’m near Boston, there are lots of very good fish stores here, it’s a good place to be if you want rare freshwater fish.
Hopefully we will have as much of a community of blackwater fish keepers as Germany does someday.
Maybe reading books like Baensch’s atlas influenced me to prefer rare freshwater fish where most Americans seem to like reef tanks.
Blackwater gouramis are impressive when you see them in well designed aquariums, they might be under the radar because freshwater fish are usually for people who don’t want to put in lots of effort (if they did they’d probably have flashy saltwater tanks.)
The small tanks a licorice gourami need make it a potentially great kind of aquarium for someone who doesn’t want to expend lots of money or effort but wants a rewarding aquarium.
Blackwater tanks with antibacterial substances in them are an appealing philosophy for fishkeeping, make your tank an antiseptically clean place, unlike a live rock kind of philosophy where it’s a lottery of good and bad organisms and a little too close to real nature!