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Help! My dwarf gourami's spawned


Rozski

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OK, so I got a male gourami last Friday as a mate for my female, and he tried on the first day to make a bubble nest and kind of failed. Well he has been making another one for the last two days at the front of the tank. He was being extra grumpy (seeing as I have not seen any other tank occupants for two days! they are all hiding at the back) and I took a closer look today and his little bundle of weed (severe lack of bubbles) is full of little fry. I assume if I leave them in there he will eventully stop playing Dad and they will get eaten?

I do have a spare 22 litre tank though, it is empty at the moment. I can clean it and stick a heater in it though. Will all the fry die if I transfer them over? Spose not much to lose, but any suggestions are welcome :-)

Oh, and if I take them out, effectively destroying his nest, will he become more amicable to the other tank members?

Thanks!

PS. Yay for bubbas! :lol:

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I'd take a guess that most would die on the change over. perhaps when you do a water change you can drop the water from that into the other tank so at least the water parameters are similar. other then that i don't know how its going to work. hopefully someone will either have an answer or a solution to this as i'm interested to know as well.

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Take as much water as you can from the main tank and put it into the 22L tank then transfer the babys over somehow (by themselves) and put a heater in with them(set to the same as the main tank!) They wont need heaps of water to start off with, just enough to keep them there, plus put an airstone in if you can. Just put another cup full into the smaller tank every few hours until it is at a level you are happy with. That way the fry wont get shocked too much by water parameters... Other than that theres not alot else you can do. if these ones dotn survive, setup the small tank and put the pair in there to breed, and when they do, take them out and chuck them back into the other tank (or leave one or both there if you want)

HTH

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Coolies thanks for that. Will be scooping them all carefully, with their weed into an icecream container, then siphoning tank water to my spare. Then depositing fry in the spare. I have chucked danio fry when they were no more than eyes with a tail into a green water tank and they made it, but hey, danios are impossible to kill lol

Theres at least 100 fry there, hopefully odds are at least one survives :wink:

Will give an update at some stage. Depends if I can get into town and get some fry food too...

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Thanks for the suggestions Alan :D Have done as you advised

Have just cleaned out my tank, stuck a heater in and a thermometer on it (had to get another thermometer as the stick on one on the side is too high up when theres on 8cm of water in the tank lol) and transferred the fry over.

Scooped them into a container, managed to get 85% odd. Then siphoned water into 2nd tank, managed to siphon up most of the fry left behind. Then chucked those waiting in the container into the tank with their associated weedy bits, and stuck a lid and gladwrap on. Nice and steamy in there :wink:

Also bought some JBL Novil fluid to feed them with. I know BBS are the gold standard, but I've never raised them before and don't quite have the time right now :-?

Lots in there! Fingers crossed some make it

Now I just really hope my male gourami calms down a bit before he kills my other tank members. Even the danios aren't their happy selves anymore :(

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Well after wondering where all my fry had gone and thinking they'd all disintegrated, I looked at the far corner of the tank and theres about 40 of them now free swimming and hanging out in just that corner (maybe its where all the cool kids are these days?)

Hehe, I am too excited about these guys, its sad. Must be severely lacking in fun mental stimulation thanks to exams :roll:

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No wonder my danio fry survived lol, I threw them in a tank i had left for a few weeks to turn green and then forgot about them for a while :wink:

Didn't have this set up in time though, although the water is turning green on its own already I think. I will chuck some java moss in there too.

Heres the pair:

GouramiPair.jpg

And the grumpy father himself who is well on his way to exterminating the rest of his tank mates. Lord only knows where my killies are hiding...

Gouramiboy.jpg

Scuse the grubby glass, my kitten keeps nosing it trying to get to the fish :roll:

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That's a stunning male, nice even unbroken stripes, the ones I have seen around lately have broken patterns, or not many stripes at all, or very angular heads.

I would be very interested in a male if you manage to raise your batch of fry.

If you see forty fry, you could possible double that number, I raised a batch that I took out of my community tank and put in 20l tank, and when they had grown to about 10mm, I transfered them to a bigger tank and counted them.... there were 85 or them!

Try decapsulated brine shrimp, if you can't be bothered hatching your own. The fry last for quite some time on green water, just be careful with the liquid fry food, it is quite easy to overfeed and pollute the water.

Oh, and our male was always chasing everything around the tank, didn't matter what or who, with or without bubble nest, fry, or a nookie several minutes before, didn't seem to matter. We just let the plants get overgrown so that he couldn't see the other fish to chase them!

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Hey Zev, my gourami graciously accepts your compliments :wink: lol, he was the only one in the store, and he looked healthy with all his fins etc, so took him. If you look closely at the pair photo, you can spot the ulcer he has on his left hand side, he got it a few days after I bought him. Seems to not bother him and be healing though.

And I wish you'd posted a day earlier! I've just come up from Palmy to the bay for a couple of weeks, and I probably could have been easily swayed to sell you the pair. I was thinking of getting a bigger better tank, but after doing the budget, I've decided not to. Either have to sell them, or just go up another 10 litres or so to give the fish (and my huge java fern) some more room. He doesn't destroy the other fish or anything, but the chasing is stressing them and the killies are always in hiding. Never seen the danios so sad either (might be old age though) plus no-one comes out for food

Will see whats alive when I get back :roll: My bf is under strict instruction to feed my fish every few days and keep an eye on the inhabitants. Not feeding the fry really yet anyway.

Thanks though, will keep you updated 8)

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