Strange Gourmai behaviour!!

[CJK]

Hi, I'm hoping someone might be able to help me out here. I have three 'sunset' dwarf gourmai in my community tank. On Sunday I noticed that one of them seems to be building a bubble nest in the corner near the filter intake I understand its the male that does this...but I have no idea of the sex of the other two!! One sits on the bottom under the bubble nest and the other one hovers between the two. Sometimes it looks like he is helping the gourami at the top build the nest and other times it sits on the bottom with the one I think is possibly the female. If any fish come near the gourami on the bottom he frightens them off and shields her by staying right next to her, so close they are touching.

I'm wondering if I possibly have one female and two males and that the second male is helping out!!! The other fish in the tank which include Cardinals, Zebra Danios and harlequins are acting very excited and keep swimming over to the side of the tank where the nest is being built. Do they know there may be eggs to eat soon???

As this is the first time any of my fish have shown any signs of breeding I do not have any idea what I am supposed to do?? Should I move all three to another tank? I imagine the chance of this eggs/fry surviving must be virtually nil as I have read that they are very tiny. The tank is very heavily planted. We are doing a water change tomorrow because it is due...is it still okay to do this??

Thank you for any advice I really need it sorry the post is so long.

Sharon

 

[petshop johnny]

the other fish will definetly eat the eggs.but no wonder shes building a nest she got two men in her life lol :kira:

 

[Losi]

I would not do a water change as the water level will drop and destroy the nest.

The male is the one building the nest but the behaviour of the other two is strange.

Are there any colour differences between the three of them?

The best thing to do for now is leave them to do their thing and then once it has all settled down move them to a seperate tank if you want to try to breed them.

 

[CJK]

Hi and thanks for the replies. I cannot see any difference in the colour between the three of them. The bubble nest builder is at it all day but the nest never seems to get much bigger!! Is this because its by the filter intake and its slowly sucking the bubbles in

I'm afraid now is not really the time for my fish to breed as I want to do alot of work on the tank after xmas (changing all the plants and a revamp of the interior). But what really concerns me is that we HAVE to do a water change as we have just finished treatment for snails!!!!

Sharon