Spawning Dwarf Gouramis

[Orbit887]

My male dwarf today started building a bubble nest today, which is usually quite amusing as he's normally v bad at it! Anyhow I saw the bubblenest in some floating plants when doing a water change earlier, and tonight he's started spawning with the female under the nest, which is a first as usually he cant stand her company for more than a few seconds

This week I've had lighting problems - my starter/bulb went on tuesday, and couldnt get to LFS till Saturday morning, so the tank had been just having the small amount of natural light through my window that reaches inside, and the room light (60w), which left it all v dark. After I replaced the bulb/starter I then went away for wknd until sunday night, when in bed at 11.30 i noticed the light was still on, but the timer should've turned it off 30mins ago. Checked the and somehow it'd been switched to always on instead of timer, so light had been on since sat morning.

Do you think this lighting could've somehow set them off mating? V low light for 4 days, then constant bright light for 36hours? and they're now appreciating what they've got! Just seems bit strange to me as it felt like i'd been neglecting the tank my not being able to fix the light sooner, rather than keeping all water parameters to their best!

 

[xanthianacid]

Can offer a small amount of info from experience
Dwarf Gourami's are a bit lazy with bubblenesting, its just the way they are.
If they bred once they will most likely have another go.
If you're super keen, leave the water but feed them protein rich and live foods for a week or so,
change the water and when putting the water back in use a watering can imitating rain.
Its suppose to work a treat, because they're used to dirty water, then the rains come and clean it out
signalling breeding time.
I've had wierd attempts but none of the babies ever survived, and the nests might look dodgy and little
esp in comparison to bettas but they seem to fit a bloody lot of babies in there.
Thats the extent of my knowledge. I don't think natural lighting is really a bad thing, except to encourage
algae growth (I mean, its natural light after all).
If you want to breed seriously though, I'd read all about it before I began, the above is just some hints I got
and used (relatively successfully but wasn't sure how to handle the babies) before.
Read a lot and good luck.