Helostoma temminckii

Common name
Kissing gourami

Description
A bit dull looking fish. This fish doesn't pay any attention to other fishes in the aquarium. Most of the day this fish is busy eating algae of plants.

My experiences
Although this fish mostly isn't mentioned in literature as an algae eater, it proved to be an excellent one in my aquarium. I've had this fish in my aquarium for almost 2.5 years before it suddenly died. Until this day this fish had never given any problems in my aquarium. The age of 2.5 years is less than the age of about 5 years that is possible for this fish. In my aquarium this fish had reached a length of about 6 till 7 cm, while a length of about 13 cm is normal in an aquarium. Probably my fish stayed smaller because my aquarium is only 70 cm wide, which was probably not big enough for this fish to grow much bigger.

Foot-note
The picture of this page is taken from my own aquarium.

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