Licorice Gourami

About

Found in freshwater blackwater swamps and slow streams of Sumatra and surrounding Indonesian islands, this obscure licorice gourami, Parosphromenus ornaticauda, is one of the smallest members of a genus already known for compact size. Males can be identified by the distinctive color patterning in the tail fin and the heavy black pigmentation running through the dorsal and anal fins. Like all members of the labyrinth fish group, it possesses a specialized accessory breathing organ that allows it to extract oxygen from air at the surface, though it does so far less frequently than many of its relatives. The care label of "beginner" in the structured data is worth treating with some skepticism. This species is not forgiving post-import and can be vulnerable to disease when it first arrives in a tank, so getting fish settled is the real hurdle. Once established, keeping it works best in a species-only setup or alongside very small, peaceful cyprinids like Boraras. Mixing different Parosphromenus species is a bad idea due to hybridization risk. Breeding is genuinely rewarding but requires patience. Males perform a dramatic near-vertical, fins-fanned display and dart rapidly around the female across a wider area than most congeners, so the tank needs room to accommodate that courtship. Broods are small, typically only around 10 to 20 eggs.