My Male Made A Bubble Nest

[Seb R]

Hey there,

My male honeys have been around the top of the tank for a few days now, occasionally making a few bubble. Now today I came back from running, and found that I've got a male gaurding a small nest, with quite a few small eggs inside it.

What should I do, seperate, or leave him be? I'm going to give away the other male to a LFS (hope they accept). How aggressive will he get, and how long until hatch?

I have notcied some aggression in the past to my rams from the honeys and i suspect they once killed a guppy of mine. Anyway, is there any way to have a happy community tank with gourami males there?

Thanks for any info

just thought i'd show some pics too, sorry for poor quality

 

[willtang3000]

get rid of the filter and the other fish and leave the male in there until the fry are free swimming

 

[Seb R]

im not going to be able to move any fish at all, it is my main community tank and its not feasible solution

the best option i got is to either remove the eggs (i recon there are about 50) from the male. OR slide a breeding net (Quite a large one) under the male and nest.

How much care do males provide for the eggs/fry? Is a male looking after them 100% vital?

 

[sylvia]

First things first - how big is the tank and exactly what's in there with him? For there to be eggs, I assume you have some female honeys as well - how many and how many males?

Depending on the tank's temp, the eggs will normaly only take 1-3 days (usualy the lower part of this if the temps' around 80 deg F) to hatch and the fry become free-swimming after a few days. Once free-swimming, the fry need to be left alone and fed tiny foods such as infusoria and newly hatched brine shrimp, vinegar eels or microworms (only in a bare tank though as they won't be able to get microworms in a tank with a substrate).

The male needs to be removed once the fry can swim but he is necessary before then because he'll pick up any fallen eggs/fry, clean the eggs to prevent them from becoming fungused, keep the water flow over the eggs right so that they aren't covered in fungus and repair the nest as necessary. Putting him and the nest within the confines of a breeding net, however, is not a good idea. Besides the fact that this isn't going to work once the fry hatch (they fit through the holes of a 'net'-type breeder and the plastic ones aren't an option because the eggs will likely become fungused), the male is also likely to become very stressed and either neglect his nest/eggs/fry or eat them.

The fry won't survive in your tank once hatched anyway. If you don't have a place to put the rest of the fish, I'd simply destroy the nest now (before the eggs hatch) and increase water flow/lower temp. just a tad. That'll discourage your fish from spawning again. By destroying the nest, you also elliminate aggression (for the most part).

Having said that, you could try removing the whole nest into another tank and see if, maybe, you'll get a few fry (without the male there I mean). I personaly doubt you'll have many (if any) survivors but it may be worth a try - more as an experiment than anything else realy. Add some snails and some plants to the tank and buy some liquid food for egg-layers. that should supply any fry (once free-swimming) with tiny foods to eat for a while. Then you can move them on to small live foods (such as baby brine shrimp) or powdered flake. It may or may not work but you can always try.

 

[Seb R]

thanks for all the information , i really appreciate it

I have 2 males and 2 females (i originally thought I had 1 male, but the other showed 'his true colours' about two weeks ago', been meaning to give him away, but not had time). My tank is a 70L, with 2 rams, 2 baby bristlenoses and 3 male guppies + the gouramis.

I have turned out the lights right now, so I'll leave all difficult decisions until the morrow
I have seen alot of the eggs begin to drift away a bit and there are a few clumps scattered around the tank (has a very densely planted top, so they wont be eaten).

I think I may try to put some that are neglected in a small net suspended in the water. Anyway i have a fry tank if they hatch. Besides I have never seen any gouramis spawn, so this is a bit of a new thing for me

 

[Seb R]

Well I took all the eggs and put them in a floating tub.

Then this morning they had all hatched and I was greeted with about 50 little wrigglers . Which seem to be getting stronger every hour.

How long will it take them to get to about 1 cm long? and then how long to get to a decent size?

 

[sylvia]

That realy varies depending on food, water quality and temperature. It isn't realy possible to say with accuracy. Gourami fry grow very quickly in the beginning though.

 

[Seb R]

they certainly are

there are even more eggs now in the male's bibble nest! They seem to be getting better at making them now

 

[TammyLiz]

How are the babies that you moved doing?

 

[Miss Dib Dabs]

Awww bless. How're they doing?I recently discovered my gouramies had been busy without me knowing, cheeky lil smegs. Judging by where BB normally has his nest I'd say there's been more spawning going on too. Just have no clue who the Mummy is. The three week olds look like they're Spots but I could be wrong. Colour isn't very pronouced as yet. Probably because I wasn't aware of them (Hospitals then son ill followed by me ill.....) and hadn't fed accordingly. They look healthy and bright tho.
Won't take them long to reach a centimetre tho.
Hugs,
P.

 

[Seb R]

my little babies are doing great

I had some more eggs, many of which I lerft with thier father, who has calmed down, as he now looks after his babies too

 

[TammyLiz]

Glad to hear it! Maybe one day mine will spawn, too. Right now they are in trouble, though! Check out the emergencies section to see if you can offer any help.

 

[Seb R]

Well i recon I have got about 100 babies, which i guess i will have to reduce in the near future (my breeding tank just can't handle that many).

I'm also not going to keep male gouramis in the future. 1. they breed like anything 2. they have attacked my rams on numerous occasions 3. they hate my guppies 4. they hate my females, unless they are breeding. So i will have a tank with all my fish + a few female gouramis

eesh i didnt know the males were such monsters , you guys should warn people

 

[pieman]

You'll have to plan ahead what your doing with the fry, you dont want 100 of those things fully grown