Gouramies

Does anyone have experience in keeping them?
In the years I've kept fish I've never really had any, except for a short time with dwarfs in an old tank but they died shortly after being in my tank due to a dodgy batch my local fish store had ( which they admitted and let me have some free tetras)

I'm looking at keeping some pearl and moonlight gouramies 2 of each most probably female so I don't have any males making my tank hell.

Whilst my tank is cycling I'm looking at what fish I could have and I know I want some Angels and a nice big shoal of Pencilfish and was wondering if they were compatible? I know my tank is big enough and my water hardness and temp and ph should all be fine with all the fish so far.

All the reading I've done points to them being quite territorial and can be a menace to most tanks? But for every 2/3 bad ones there's a good one?. So I'm wondering if it's more tank mates and sizes than them being a menace?

Could anyone shed any light?

Thanks for that Chris, the fact both of yours get a lot bigger than either of the 2 I want as I didn't want them to outsize the Angels that will be in there by much if at all as they are my favourite fish., makes me at ease abit more, just need to find a nice coloured shoaling fish for the mid section now that can deal with my hard water!!!!!

My tank is 250 litres so is quite large. I've thought about the dwarf rainbows, but weren't sure if they were like the other rainbows I had that, I had to rehome as they were scaring the pencilfish to the corners of the tank with their behaviour! Have you ever had them Resa???

Dwarf rainbows are lively and perhaps a bit boisterous at times but they're not aggressive. I have them in with Celestial Pearl Danios which are obviously pretty small and they're fine.

Yeah they sound like mini versions of the normal rainbows, they were ok it was just the constant darting and chasing of each other that scared the pencilfish. Once I took the rainbows out the pencilfish I had were a lot more adventurous and moved around the tank instead of staying in the corners

Thanks Andrea I am tempted to keep the males just seems to be everywhere you read its the males that cause the havoc. Every Angelfish I've kept have always been fine as long as they are added last, I've kept them with everything and never had any issues!

Perhaps I've been unlucky with Gouramies.
In the past year I have had ten dwarves (six red and four blues) in my 250 litre tank. I am now down to the last one!
I purchased them from two different LFS, so cannot be sure which came from where, but the first red one passed away in just two days.
I know they are very nervous and susceptible to bullying when new to the tank. Also, I read rumours of flawed (diseased?) batches at wholesale breeders, so expected some losses, but not on this scale.
Much as I love the Gouramies, I'm going to avoid keeping them in future. Unless someone can recommend a hardier variety?

Yeah it sounds similar to me Chris I had 4 in an old tank whilst at my parents and they all died within days of each other with the longest lasting one just under 2 weeks. I've read about the infection Sue mentioned and I'm not sure if that's what mine had but it did put me off adding more although I do love the Honey Dwarf Gouramies but I'm dubious about adding them because of the stuff I've read!