The pearl gourami is widely considered the most beautiful and best-behaved of the larger gouramis, dressed in white spangles over bronze with a black lateral line.
Mature males add a flame-orange throat.
It is hardy, peaceful, and forgiving — a genuinely beginner-suitable centrepiece fish for a planted community, provided the tank is large and calm enough for it.
Housing
Provide at least 110 litres (29 gallons) with gentle flow, dense edge planting, and some floating cover; like all gouramis they are labyrinth breathers that sip air at a calm surface.
Keep the water at 24-28C.
Keep one male with a group of females, or a single fish in a community; two males will spar over territory in average tanks.
Soft to moderately hard, slightly acidic to neutral water suits them, though tank-bred fish adapt widely.
Diet
Pearl gouramis accept everything: quality flake or small pellets as the staple, rotated with frozen or live brine shrimp, daphnia, and bloodworm.
Some vegetable matter or spirulina rounds the diet out.
Feed once or twice daily only what is eaten within a couple of minutes.
They are deliberate, polite feeders, so check they are not outcompeted by faster tankmates.
Health
This is a robust species; most problems arrive with poor water quality or aggressive tankmates rather than disease susceptibility.
Standard quarantine of new arrivals covers the rest.
Watch the long, thread-like ventral feelers: fin-nipping species shred them, which is a welfare problem and an infection route.
Stable temperature and a calm surface keep the labyrinth organ happy.
Temperament
Among the gentlest large gouramis, pearls glide through the midwater and explore plants with their touch-sensitive feelers.
They are shy in bare tanks and confident in planted ones.
Pair them with peaceful tetras, rasboras, corydoras, and similar; avoid barbs and other nippers.
Males build bubble nests and display beautifully at breeding time.
Beginner
Beginner
Beginner
Beginner
Beginner
Beginner