Talk:Pearl gourami

What's with the scientific name?

Is it Trichogaster leerii or Trichogaster leeri? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.219.228.172 (talk) 10:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Trichopodus leerii, see article for references. Kat (talk) 00:39, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Pearl gourami → Trichopodus leerii – Currently, the page is under pearl gourami. I propose that it is moved to Trichopodus leerii with pearl gourami as a redirect as per WikiProject Fishes naming guidelines because there are at least 3 common common names, the first and third of which I come across equally regularly when communicating with fellow hobbyists:

• pearl gourami (826,000 Google results)
• diamond gourami (430,000 Google results)
• lace gourami (274,000 Google results)

…as well as some other common names:

• platinum gourami (shared with T. microlepis and T. trichopterus -> can lead to confusion)
• mosaic gourami (119,000 Google results)
• leeri gourami (misspelling of the scientific name)

While pearl gourami is the preferred common name, the others are still used regularly.
Your thoughts on the move would be appreciated (please preface with Support, Oppose or Comment).
Kat (talk) 11:23, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• Support - fish with multiple common names should be under their scientific name. --Xijky (talk) 17:12, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose -- "Pearl gourami" is the name that's been used by both the FAO and the American Fisheries Society, which gives it more weight than the alternatives. Furthermore, it's unique so there's no chance that the current article title can lead to confusion, and the search results above demonstrate that it's the most prevalent name. Redirects are sufficient to handle the additional common names. -- Yzx (talk) 18:33, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. What matters is the name that our readers will use to look for the article. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Comment: Yzx, I agree that "pearl gourami" is the usual common name that is used in the scientific community, but it is not universal, nor unique, as can be seen from the above results, although does uniquely apply to T. leerii. I would also like to remind you that while those two organisations use that specific common name, they are only two resources out of many and do not decide on a "canonical" common name scheme.

Tryptofish, in person (in south UK), I have only heard the use of "lace gourami" as a common name, so in my experience, the names do vary throughout English speaking countries. Just because I would look for "lace gourami", I don't think that is reason enough to subject others to it ;)

As Nick Thorne mentioned on one of the discussions, it is probably time to revisit the naming guidelines if we are to use the most popular common name, regardless of regional variations or popularity of the rest.

Kat (talk) 10:09, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

'how to' section added

This is the material which User:Nightstalker1967 added:

[[[ A long edit that you may skip if you don't want to learn something useful follows. It is very pertinent to Pearl Gouramis but applicable to all fishes.Skip to next 3 brackets to skim past. If you wish to raise this or any other of the 'tropical' fishes to their full potential size and their best coloration one must take out at least 10-15% of the water every week and replace it with fresh water. Even if the tank has ALL the modern filtration devices small traces of chemicals that retard fish development will accumulate over time. Also 5the Ph gets more and more acid quicker and quicker if you don't change out the water.None of us like this chore much, so it is often 'forgotten'. But it is feasible and efficient to rube goldberg an apparat that feeds in a small amount of fresh tap water -- this will not harm your fish as long as it is a small percentage of the tank volume per hour --- continuously, while dealing with the overflow that would occur by using an old fashioned plastic catch cup with a stand pipe of say 3/8 rigid poly pipe through the bottom of the cup. You simply start a siphon from the aquarium into the cup (or outside filter box, etc), have the pipe set at the correct height(this can be eyeballed -- che scientiferific ;>)}}) and the water level in the aquarium will be maintained at the same level as that in the cup. You use a micro brass valve and spaghetti tubing to control the feed rate of the the water into the tank and as a water source the device and tubing that is used to tap into a home water pipe to add an automatic ice tray filler for your refrigerator. You can have a continuous in-feed and auto discharge for less than $20.--$10 or free if you are a scrounge. These days you can get everything you need from garden shops that have drip irrigation supplies but decades ago I found the brass air valves were extremely reliable, accurate and did not vary the flow rates. You can just run the overflow water off into a plant (plants LOVE aquarium water) or right out the door with air hose tubing or get fancier. I used this or a similar method to insure continuous in-feed of fresh water in tanks from 20 (flow rate of 1 gallon/day) to 2000 (flow rate of 50 gallons /day) gallons for the last 55 years. ]]]

The fish in the picture to the right is a female in top notch shape and about 4.5" long. If you use an improved viewing size -- 640-480 maybe, I don't remember, you can clearly see what I will describe. Select the picture and find the best size for you. The tell tale in this case (as with most gouramis) is the dorsal fin. This fish has a very rounded dorsal. An adult male's would be very long, pointed at the end, and may touch his caudal fin. The fin rises straight up from the body for 2-3mm and has about 6-10 rays. Then it makes a right angle turn toward the caudal and widens to 4-5mm before tapering to the point. (I haven't ever measured a fish and am working from memory to give this description.) It is quite a lovely fin. The other descriptions of sexual morphology below are adequate but I could not edit that section for some strange reason. I have raised this fish to over 6" when I obtained them very young or raised them myself.