Eyespot gourami

Care at a glance

Overview

Keep a group of six or more in a planted 45 litre tank at 18 to 25 C with soft to neutral water around pH 6.5 to 7.5. Feed small live and frozen foods such as baby brine shrimp, daphnia, and micro worm, as this picky micropredator often ignores dried food. It is easily intimidated, so keep it alone or with equally calm, small fish and no fast feeders. Cooler room-temperature water suits it better than tropical heat.

In the wild

Found in still and slow waters of northern Myanmar, including swamps and the margins of Lake Indawgyi, that are heavily planted. Being in the north, these waters can run cool, so it experiences subtropical rather than tropical temperatures. It is a slow, retiring fish that keeps to cover. It looks like a small chocolate gourami but sits in a separate genus.

Good to know

Parasphaerichthys ocellatus was described by Prashad and Mukerji in 1929 and belongs to the family Osphronemidae. Despite resembling the chocolate gouramis, it is a bubble-nest builder rather than a mouthbrooder. It stays tiny at around 3 cm and carries a dark eyespot near the base of the tail.

Did you know

It is one of the few chocolate gourami relatives that builds a bubble nest instead of brooding its eggs in the mouth.

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