Trichogaster leeri, the Pearl Gourami

Trichogaster leeri (Pearl Gourami). One of the ten most beautiful freshwater tropical fishes. Why do so many aquarists struggle with the aggressive T. trichopterus and ignore this equally hardy, somewhat gentler beauty? The doctor and ichthyologist Pieter Bleeker, who first described many of the Dutch East Indies' fishes, named this one in 1852 to compliment his colleague, the physician Dr. J. M. van Leer.
 
Warmth is more important to Pearl Gouramis than water hardness or pH. Sexing immature Pearl Gouramis may be difficult. Sex of mature fish is easily determined: as a male matures, the rear corner of his dorsal fin will become more pointed and will eventually get to be pennantlike. By contrast, the female's dorsal keeps the rounded rear corner that all juveniles have. As they both begin to be ripe, the male's throat and belly will redden to a fiery flame-orange glow. Females are slightly smaller and plump. Towards breeding time, the female will noticably swell with roe. The fish aren't shy, once they've settled in. Touching, testing and nudging is constant, with the threadlike pectoral fins in full play. Keep a single male with a small harem of females, to cut down on sparring.
 
Pearl Gouramis get to be a full 4 inches (12cm); they are cramped in any less space than what a long 20-gallon tank affords. Dense planting, especially a tangle of floating Water Sprite, cuts down on territorial aggression, and the Pearl Gourami will choose an especially broad leaf to stabilize the bubble nest, which may be large and untidy. The eggs contain a droplet of oil that makes them buoyant. You might offer a chunk of floating corkbark for this —  or a margarine container lid.
 
This is another species that originated  during the glacial age in the vast flat savannas and peat swamps drained by the Great Sunda River, and then got isolated in separate relict populations in Malaya, Sumatra and eastern watersheds of Borneo, when the level of the South China Sea rose and drowned the plain. The  ranges of hills that separate Burma from India also separate Trichogaster species, in the southeast-trending Irawaddy watershed, from the closely allied genus Colisa in the southwest-trending Brahmaputra watershed.
 
The fish are seldom found in open water. They prefer shallow, thickly overgrown, still, even stagnant waters of ponds and slow streams.
 
 
Links. Several outstanding descriptions of breeding Pearl Gouramis are online: at the Aquatic Community site, at the Aqualand Pets Plus site, at the Microcosm Aquarium Explorer site. The descriptions apply to breeding all kinds of Anabantoids. Encouraging spawning behavior involves setting up the male alone in a planted aquarium,  raising temperatures slowly to the low 80s, lowering the water level gradually, and cutting down on feed, all to mimic the dry season.
 
The old tale has Anabantoid fry perishing in droves as their labyrinths were developing. You've heard that  endlessly, and I have always given it credit myself. Perhaps the real killer, it would seem, is ammonia levels that can rise in overcrowded fry tanks, which force the fry gasping to the surface before they begin to succumb.  
 
You should also read Terry French's extended description of breeding Pearl Gouramis and raising fry at the C.A.F.E. website. The indefatigable Kaycy Ruffer, who has bred everything she can get her hands on, found that her T. leeri spawned in a mere 10-gal. tank; she describes the event at her website.
 
The link at Aquarticles to Heather Hertziger's article on breeding them and raising the fry, which offers a few twists of her own, appears to be broken. Another excellent account of breeding T. leeri was written  by then 16-year-old Graham Nicholls.