Dwarf Gourami nesting/breeding questions...

[yodafett]

Hi all, first time here. I saw several refs to this site from Aquaria Central, so I thought I'd try my luck with getting some advice here, too.

So my wife and I purchased 3 dwarf neon blue gourami over the weekend. I remembered my sister having a gourami in our comunity tank as a kid and thought they were attractive enough the wife would like them too, bonus! Well, after a couple days of getting settled, we noticed that Monday night, one of them had built a big bubble nest in one corner of the tank. He wasn't overly protective of it, but he didn't want anyone else really touching the nest itself, so as long as they stayed a couple inches away, he seemed fine. Well, yesterday I say the video posted here by NinjaPenguin and thought, "That must be nice, the only fish we can breed are guppies, and our Julli Cories"... Last night when I got home, he wouldn't let anyone including the cories in "his" half of the tank. He would chase away anyone withing about 8-10 incehs of the nest. The nest itself is smaller, but several of the bubbles are larger, about the size of a pea, and seem to have an "oily" or iridescent sheen to them. I tried to take some pics, but they didn't really turn out with enough details to be of help. I notices in NP's video, it said that 24 hours later, there were fry swimming around.

Do Gourami really go from eggnest to fry in a 24 hour window?

Does it sound like we should be looking for some when I get home, or just a freak coincidence?

If we do have baby Gourami, do I need to take any special care, aside from crushing the food a bit finer for them?

Are they likely to be consumed without adequate cover protection or a seperate tank?

I guess some of this I should have looked up before purchasing them, but like I said, we've never REALLY had luck with breeding. I mean, who CAN'T breed guppies, and I heard that cories were somewhat difficult to breed, so assumed that was a fluke...

Any help and feedback would be great!

 

[F-18 TECH]

The first question you must ask yourself is if you have any females in the tank because it is quite possible you may have all males. Usually most pet stores only purchase males due to the inhanced colors most males provide. More Color = More sales in most cases. The way you can tell the difference from male to female in most Gouramis is, at about 5 months, the females become heavier in comparison to the males, as seen from above. Also they are a tad lighter in color. If in fact you do have a viable breeding pair once the deed is done you will need to remove the parents and turn off the filter as the bubble nest is quite fragile to current. Heres the tough part. After the parents have been removed remove half of the water and cover the tank with a tight fitting plexiglass lid, you must do this in order to allow the fish to develop their labyrinth organ. This organ allows the fish to surface and take a breath of air is so required.After about 24 hours the fry will hatch and become swimmers in about 3 days from my experience. Hope I have not scared you into flushing these fish or abandoning breeding all together.

 

[F-18 TECH]

Sorry i did not mention a great site i googled almost mirrors my reply
www.az.essortment.com/breedinggourami_rdks.htm
hope the info helps. Also while I am here a great book to pick up if breeding is your thing is the encyclopedia of tropical fishes with emphasis on techniques of breeding By Dr. Herbert R. Axelrod

 

[WolfFisho1]

if you mean dwarf neons or sunset etc. the stores usually only sell males! so you may just have an excited male! he may have become excited over the transfer from store to home!

he could have only built the bubble nest in hopes of getting a female to come and breed!

so yea i would say most likely not because of the mostly male thing!

 

[yodafett]

Fairn enough. the nest is gone now, and no fry or hatchlings seen. Thanks all for your input! And like I said, it wasn't an intent to breed, I just thought we might have gotten lucky. Will need some planning in advance to be ready for that.