Help...

[Leopard-danio]

Hi erm i put my two gouramis in a seperate tank and they have now started breeding ...i'm unsure of what type of gourami they are, they have blue/grey background with orange stripes and tail... the tank isn't very warm either so i'm just wondering what i should do now as i did not intend for them to breed... so please help i'm just worried that the young will not survive if they do hatch...

 

[stang1]

Have you got a picture at all? They sound like Thick Lipped Gouramis but not sure without a pic.

 

[DarkEntity]

I dont think its a thick lipped as all the ones ive seen look like this

which is the wrong colour.

Its not a pair of these is it..

If so they are Paradise Gourami, or Paradise Fish

 

[stang1]

Just took a photo of my Thick Lipped Gourami, does he look like this?

 

[sylvia]

A picture would help with identification!

Why exactly did you move them into a seperate tank together?

When gouramies breed, the male will typicaly biuld a bubble nest under which he entices the female. They 'embrace', and the female releases eggs which the male fertilises. From this point onwards, the male starts chasing the female away from the nest while he boisterously guards it and, occasionaly, retrieves sunken eggs (or any that have drifted from the nest) and cleans or removes those that are fungusing or unfertilised. The female should be removed at this point. Now, depending on species, the eggs will hatach and the fry will become free swimming over the next 1-3 days. Temperature also affects this. The male should also be removed as soon as they are able to swim. At this point, they need to be fed on tiny live foods - usualy initialy infusoria (or egg-layer liquid foods - ask your LFS) and afterwards tiny live foods like baby brine shrimp, vinegar eels or microworms (check the betta section for a pinned article on live/cultured/fry foods). The fry are extremely small and won't usualy survive in a community setting where they are quickly eaten.

I'm not clear on whether these two gouramies of yours are in a tank on their own. Nor do I know why they are in there. However, put simply, if you don't want them to breed, destroy the male's bubblenest. Remember that the female should not be kept with the male after spawning - so if you have nowhere to move her, you have no choice but to terminate the spawn (unless this is a large tank).

Also, in some species, the male becomes aggressive enough while guading his nest to kill tankmates. Increasing the current at the water's surface discourages bubblenesting as well and is a good diea for long-term prevention of spawning.

 

[Leopard-danio]

Mine look like that but they are alot darker, and they are both making the nest and they did this weird lip locking n thrash away kinda thing, was very strange they did that around 4 times that i kno of and i'm not sure what genders they are... they may well be striped gouramis, cos they aqaurium claimed they were this certain breed...can't remember the name now...

 

[Leopard-danio]

My gouramis look alot like that picture you posted of the thick lipped gouramis except it is more a grey background (sorry bout the double posting)

and the aquarium said these can live in coldish water, so that's what they are in, and i seperated the gouramis from the other tank as they were shredding all the other fishes fins.

I keep on seeing yellow blobs floating down from the "female" every few minutes...i'm persuming these are eggs, oh and they both keep on flaring their fins at each other fter mating...don't know whether this is relevant???

 

[stang1]

I've not seen this behaviour in ours but I'm no expert on gouramis. Maybe Sylvia will be able to help you out.

 

[Leopard-danio]

I've found this picture and my gouramis look exactly like that, i believe that is a blue paradise???

 

[sylvia]

Lip-locking is aggressive behaviour and bubblenesting is typicaly only done by males. Paradisefish (Macropodus opercularis - there are lots of color morphs and they are called all sorts of things), can be particularly aggressive gouramies. I don't know how much you know about bettas (Siamese fighting fish) but I often compare paradisefish behaviour to that of male bettas - which will readily fight to the death.

As it sounds like you have two males, I would strongly urge you to seperate them before they kill each other... particularly seeing as they become more aggressive when defending a nest and as you've already witnessed some violent sparring.

BTW, you can tell the sex of paradisefish by the length of their fins. males have especialy long caudal fins and longer dorsal and anal fins as well. Color isn't quite as good an indicator (especialy because there are many varieties) but males do tend to be more brightly colored.
The pic you found is of a male (if that's any help).

 

[Leopard-danio]

It appears i have two males then...but why are they breeding

Both my gouramis have lost a fair amount of colour, they look very pale and i can barely see any orange stripes now.

They are both roughly 5/6cm long one has a small slither of fin missing, maybe i should take them back to the aqaurium...

And yes my friend has a male Betta, it eats any fish that goes in her tank, even female bettas get eaten if she puts them in.

 

[stang1]

It appears i have two males then...but why are they breeding

Both my gouramis have lost a fair amount of colour, they look very pale and i can barely see any orange stripes now.

They are both roughly 5/6cm long one has a small slither of fin missing, maybe i should take them back to the aqaurium...

And yes my friend has a male Betta, it eats any fish that goes in her tank, even female bettas get eaten if she puts them in.

A female Betta should only be put in with a male for breeding. He needs to be able to see her before breeding to get used to her. Once he's built a bubble nest the female should be released so they can do their thing! You need to keep a close eye on them to make sure they're ok and once they've done their business the female should be removed.

 

[sylvia]

Just to place a little emphasis on this point - male bettas should NEVER be kept with any other bettas nor, realy, should they be in with other gouramies. they don't do any better with females than they do with other males!

Back to the paradisefish - they are not breeding. They are simply building bublenests and defending them. This is normal and doesn't mean you are going to get fry (obviously you can't - you need females to supply eggs for that!)

Their loss of color means they are stressed and the fin damage means they have been fighting. You need to find at least one a new home ASAP or they will kill each other.

 

[zoekin8yg]

Just to place a little emphasis on this point - male bettas should NEVER be kept with any other bettas nor, realy, should they be in with other gouramies. they don't do any better with females than they do with other males!

Back to the paradisefish - they are not breeding. They are simply building bublenests and defending them. This is normal and doesn't mean you are going to get fry (obviously you can't - you need females to supply eggs for that!)

Their loss of color means they are stressed and the fin damage means they have been fighting. You need to find at least one a new home ASAP or they will kill each other.

Actually the orginal poster said eggs were being released ''I keep on seeing yellow blobs floating down from the "female" every few minutes...i'm persuming these are eggs''

 

[Leopard-danio]

yeh see yellow blobs floatings down to the bottom of tank, i think they may have been eggs, not sure now, and they were mating so i'm not sure what they are now... i looked at the length of the fins and they looked the same as the picture i previously found... i'm sooo confused