Breeding Dwarfs

[dartos]

We have a slight problem with our male and 2 female dwarf gouramis. Yesterday the male built a bubble nest but I destroyed it when I was cleaning the tank. But today my wife and I came home to find that he had rebuilt his nest and when we went to look at the nest he took one of the females and they mated under the nest.

I'm glad to know that they are happy but we are not excited about his territoriality (if that's a word). We dont mind trying to raise dwarf gourami fry, but the problem is that our 65 gallon tank is not yet cycled and its concentration of ammonia is far too high to put the females in.

We are wondering if we could buy a separater for the 10 gallon and give the male half of the tank? I hope that someone can help us quick because we do not know what to do. Sorry about the urgency.

 

[sylvia]

Honestly, I think you are better off leaving it this time. Once your 55 gallon is ready, you'll have plenty of other chances to breed them. Maybe, just before you start stocking your 55 seriously, move your dwarfs into there, set up the 10 as a breeding tank and work from there. The thing is that you will have to remove the male as well and then having the 3 gouramies cramped in 5 gallons would end in disaster. That is my biggest concern. Then there's the issue of feeding the fry in a tank that has been set up with gravel and ornaments and so on. The filter's current would be a problem for young fry as well - but at the same time you want the adults to be in well-circulated water. Furthermore, feeding the fry (and you'll find feeding them can be messy) will result in lots of waste and that could be a problem for the adults. You'll need to do lots of water changes with all of them in there. Not to mentione that you can't use one of those seperators with little holes as the fry will get through! There's endless reasons why doing this would probably not work Anyway, if you want to try it still, go ahead. At worst, you'll just need to remove the seperator and let the fry get eaten/starve/be sucked up if the parents don't get along in the smaller volume.

 

[dartos]

Thank you for the response Sylvia. That night I went and got the separator and after it had been around 2 hours since the last time that we saw them spawn together, we put the separator in. (This was a day before you posted, so we didn't know any better) When we put the separator in the tank, we accidentally broke up the nest.

The next day he built another nest, but we never saw him take either female under the nest. That doesn't mean that he didn't, but we also didn't see him acting as territorial as he did the day before. We did not put the separator in that night and the nest seemed to break up on its own.

We won't worry about trying to keep the fry any longer. We will just watch out for his chasing after he builds the nest so that the females don't become too stressed out. They have a few hiding places so it shouldn't become too big of a problem.

Thank you for responding to our little 'problem'. Reading your posts in response to my own questions, along with everyone else's, has helped me more than you will ever know. So thank you very much.

 

[sylvia]

Happy to have been of some help.

 

[davejey]

What is the best filter to use when attempting to breed Dwarf Gourami?
Are there adjustable power filters or is it best to go for Under Gravel filter, Air-line-fed filter or an external filter?
Just thinking through all the issues before buying tanks and equipment and would appreciate any advice.
Davejey

 

[sylvia]

You would want a box or sponge filter. Sponge filters are best. Box filters are kind of out-of-date now I'm not sure whether this is the case but you may have been reffering to a sponge filter when you said 'airline-fed filters' before. You can get them from most LFSs or order them online.

Anything else will suck the fry in and/or kill them. Also, you can't have a strong current in a gourami fry tank (for several reasons I won't go into now - if you want to know, I'll explain). As for using a UGF, you don't realy want to have a substrate in a gourami tank and that will pretty much render the UGF useless. It will also suck fry.

 

[davejey]

Thanks Sylvia, points taken.
I have bought a cannister with white fibre wool filter and an airstone insde at the bottom, so will see how that goes.
In one of my tanks, I already use a 'corner filter' or 'box' cannister, which is filled with a sandwich layer of white wool and 'ZeoCarb' a 'broad spectrum organic compound remover' ( thats translated from the Taiwanese); and it is the clearest tank I have.
The only thing that I wonder about is if it moves the water around enough to get an even temperature.
Cheers Davejey