The fish tank is only the second home of the licorice gourami

We have to be aware of the fact that the real home of the licorice gouramis is (or was) the primary tropical forest of western Sundaland with the Wallace-line as eastern boundary (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland). Most people will only encounter licorice gouramis in a fish tank, if they ever see them at all. It was the aquarium hobby, not ichthyology which has drawn the spotlight upon this group of fish.

The history of the licorice gourami in the aquarium is not old. By the second half of the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century only very rarely had a few of these fish been kept in tanks, but as far as we know, they were not bred. Mostly these fish did not last very long, because almost nothing was known about their requirements. Even M. W. F. Tweedie, at this time curator of the fish department at the Raffles Museum of Singapore, reported before the second world war in the American magazine ”The Aquarium” that his ”P. deissneri” remained in good condition only for about half a year, then ”the joy of life” has left them. It needs ”a more skilful aquarist than I” to offer them ideal conditions. This man entered the stage in the seventies of the twentieth century: the German physician Dr. Walter Foersch. With him, our knowledge of the licorice gourami in the aquaristium began.

Today these fish are well established, though not on the aquarium hobby mass market. As a market factor, licorice gouramis are not significant and they will probably never be. They play almost no role in the pet trade, although some of the species are occasionally exported and offered in pet stores. For the friends of these fish, it is private expeditions, the exploration of more or less difficult to access wetlands by aquarium enthusiasts, which plays an important role. Almost all species and forms have been discovered and brought home this way. But as a much praised speciality for the expert, licorice gouramis belong to the most desirable, least-known and most attractive, small fish for the specialised aquarium.

These facts show that the aquarium hobby itself should not be put on a level with the pet shop aquarium hobby. The latter characterises the vast majority of today´s established aquarium types, but besides this, a minority of fish keepers voluntarily or unavoidably abandon the services of the aquarium industry and the pet shop trade partly or even completely. Amongst licorice gourami enthusiasts, both forms mix which is what makes these fish so attractive.

In the following chapter of this website, we put together the basic principles of care of licorice gouramis in the aquarium. The focus is set on the fundamentals. Some particularities are mentioned in the presentation of the various species, but these are to be found mainly in the specialised literature. Before, however, we must say some words on the relation between the aquarium and politics.

(PF)