Fighting Gouramis

Question
Hi,

We have a tank containing amongst others 2 dwarf gouramis, one a flame dwarf gourami, the other a blue dwarf gourami.  All was fine until a few weeks ago when the flame dwarf began to really dominate the tank, bullying all the fish in there including the blue dwarf gourami.  It has in the last few days become very heated, the flame gourami will not allow the blue one to eat or come out of hiding, I saw the flame nip scales off the blue and spit them out, the blue one used to be able to hide but the flame just seems to hunt him out and looking today the blue has lost practically all the scales down one side.

We have heard that rearranging the decor could decrease the dominance of the flame (he is becoming aggressive to all fish in the tank but seems to harass the blue all the time, he sees him from the other side of the tank and the flame will chase the blue endlessly and nip at the fins and scales the only thing that stops the flame is if he comes across another fish too closely and it nips at him)

would it be worthwhile taking the flame out when next doing a water change and then putting it back in after changing the water and rearranging the decor?

Or is a permanent separation the only option?

Answer
Hi Matt,
  Rearranging might help but you have to have a bunch of stuff in there to rearrange.  In other words, if the flame gourami can still see the blue gourami at a distance, then what you really need is more structure (wood, rock, plants, etc) in the tank to break up the sight-lines.  

-- Ron
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>