Breeding

[Carriej]

This is what has worked for me for breeding my anabantoids, I have had sucessful spawns of cobalt blue dwarf gouramis, honey gouramis, pearl gouramis, and opaline gouramis. I have recent aquired golden gouramis, and expect to have no problems with spawning them too.

I use live food, bloodworms and a couple of feeds of flake a day to condition the fish. when the female is getting well rounded with eggs, I take her and the male and put them in a quiet room to spawn

I generally use a bare bottomed 18 inch or a 2 foot tank. the tank will have a plant or some king of hidey hole for the female, and a sponge filter. I use fresh water but do not wash the stones or the filter, as the gouramis seem to like to spawn in slightly grubby water. I put enough floating plants that they are covering thehalf of the tank opposite to the filter. the heater (set at 26oC) must be runniing from the top surface to the bottom, or the water will stratify when you turn off the filter.

After a day or so, turn off the filter. and stay out of the room, this will give them the calm water and the privacy that they seem to like to spawn. the male, if he has not started already, should begin to build a bubble nest among the floating plants. if you have no luck the fist day, do a water change, and then boost the heater to 28oC

How big a nest will depend on each fish. generally the bigger the nest the bigger the hatch rate, but this is only a hunch I have and is not scientific.

If he has not started to build his nest within a day or so, start over with a different location. the main problem with gouramis is that external stimuli can distract them from breeding.

Once they have bred immediately remove the female.The male will become very protective of his nest and eggs, and will attempt to drive her away, in a small tank this is not always possible, which is why she will need somewhere to hide.

now you need to watch the eggs. he will mouth and tend the eggs fo a couple of days, but once the eggs have tails it is time to pull him out, as his instincts start to wear off once he sees moving fry, and he is probably hungry by this time, as the males will not take much time to eat while tending the eggs.

after about 3 days of being free swimming the fry will have used up their yolk saks and will need to be fed. you can use boiled egg yolk squeezings, or liquid fry food as well as microworms for the first week and move them onto baby brine shrimp and very fine powder flake in the second feed fish 3 feeds of live food and two of flake daily this will help them to grow faster and attain brighter colours.

my female cobalt blue dwarfs are just as bright as the males, and can only be sexed by shape and finnage.

Water changes need to be done twice weekly, but remember that gouramis do like their water a little grubby, so it is not as critical to do water changes as with some other fish. More important is to remove any uneaten food so a small siphon with an airling tube should be done once a day. after the third week their labarynth organs (the things they use to breath air from the surface) should develop, and you will experience a bit of a dieoff, as a few will fail to make the transition. after the labarynth organ has developed, however, it is all downhill as the fry are now alot tougher.

They will need room to grow. so if you do not have bigger (lidded) tanks to move them into, or split them up you will have to begin to cull, as you can only have so many in a small space.

It is easy to do, or we have found it so, and the cobalts you breed will be brighter, and tougher that their parents.

Bred cobalts will have a much greater life expectancy than imported ones, as imports usually carry parasites in them that can overwhelm the fish if they get stressed.

If you wish to try, good luck and feel free to ask me for any advice if yoiu need it, but remember that this is just what works for me, so feel free to, in fact I reccomend you to get a 2nd opinion.

[Dawn]

That's great thank you Carrie. I've printed your information out and will keep it to refer to when I think she might be old enough to breed from.

I stupidly sold off all my smaller tanks last year in a TradeMe frenzy!

[Carriej]

No worries.

Tanks are always cheap if you buy second hand. trade me is not always cheap, as there are alot of people watching, but try the papers (buy sell and exchange, or its north island equivalent) there is usually one or two bargains a week.

we have been given alot of our tanks, a friend works at a petshop, and people bring in mice/rats in tanks that they dont want anymore. they sell the rodents, and we reseal the tank and use it for fish.

[Carriej]

I forgot to mention why lids are so important. the fry need the air above the tank to be approximately the same temperature as the water or they will chill when breathing from the surface, especially when they labarynth organs are developing.

[jc360]

found this great thread, but wanting to know if i can net the bubble nest out of the tank spawned in to move to one without so many predators?