This Is Simply Awesome

Axleuk

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Ok ok ok, i know, i cant help popping to the lfs for a nosey and always alk out with something, buti promise thats ot, not more fish.

I picked up another female Dwarf Gourami and some Danios. i also picked up some floating plants in the off chance that the Gouramis would breed, although it is slim in a community tank i was told.

However, i have just noticed the male (has been really territorial recently) has built a bubble nest.

Is this something they do just for fun whether the female is intereted or not? Or does this signify that 'Ms Not Tonight Luv I've Got A Headache' might actually plop her eggs in there ?

I'm so excited :)

Oh, i also went back and bought 2 Rams too, beautiful little thing. :)
 
Sounds promising ;)

What rams did you get?

I believe they are German Blue Rams, but i will have to double check, they were only labeled Rams on the tank. One is considerably more colourful that than the other.

Ram%20pair%20cover%20photo.JPG


I'm pretty sure they are.
 
Yep GBR's. Does either have a nice bright pink belly?

You will need to keep your water pretty perfect for rams, keep the nitrites below 20ppm or they will go down hill pretty fast - a little sensitive but if you can keep the water tip top you should be ok :good:
 
axle... stop collecting the fishes i have in mind - - :lol: *just joking*
i believe minxfishy might still remember me stating them.. ;)

if you keep on buying them (which is GOOD) -you'll recieve a lot of questions from me - (reference wise)
keep me updated.. pleaaasee... :D those are the Fishes i want to keep - - -

First Question: Does your LFS delivers by post? :hey:
 
Yep GBR's. Does either have a nice bright pink belly?

You will need to keep your water pretty perfect for rams, keep the nitrites below 20ppm or they will go down hill pretty fast - a little sensitive but if you can keep the water tip top you should be ok :good:


Yes, the one whose colour is slighly duller has a bright pink belly :)

Efren, you can ask me any questions you want, i cant promise to answer them as best as some of the others, but i am happy to share my knowledge with you.

I keep a very close eye on my water and if thats what i have to do to ensure my fish are in tip top condition then so be it.
 
Efren, you can ask me any questions you want, i cant promise to answer them as best as some of the others, but i am happy to share my knowledge with you.

I keep a very close eye on my water and if thats what i have to do to ensure my fish are in tip top condition then so be it.

yup, i know you will -- and you did share some already.. :hey:

:thanks:
 
Well i have been keeping a close eye on the Male Dwarf Gourami and his bubble nesting escapades and he is now collecting bits of leaf to strengthen it.

Is he doing this for nothing, or does he think the female is full of eggs, i mean, how can you tell if the female is due to drop?
 
The building of the bubble nest means first of all that the water conditions are right. Then I always consider it a bit of an 'egg and hen' question. On the one hand, the male sees the female, knows that the conditions are right and starts building a nest. The nest (and it seems the size of the nest influences too) can then trigger the female on the other hand to show interest and actually becoming willing to mate. It is hard to know though whether the male sees first that the female can produce eggs, or whether she starts producing eggs after having seen the male's performance (in building the nest and his physical).
 
The building of the bubble nest means first of all that the water conditions are right. Then I always consider it a bit of an 'egg and hen' question. On the one hand, the male sees the female, knows that the conditions are right and starts building a nest. The nest (and it seems the size of the nest influences too) can then trigger the female on the other hand to show interest and actually becoming willing to mate. It is hard to know though whether the male sees first that the female can produce eggs, or whether she starts producing eggs after having seen the male's performance (in building the nest and his physical).

This is good news to me because my tank has only been running for 2 weeks now and i cycled it using Bactinette (sorry guys!) I have done 2 water changes of 20% in that time and my levels have always remained constant.

I am not getting my hopes up at the moment, but it has prompted me to get an Aquaone 320 to use as the breeding tank. I will see how this turns out and should there be no action put them in the tank once its cycled.

Thanks for the info :)
 
Read this article from Sylvia on breeding pearls. She says it is valid for most gourami types and is a good description if you are serious about breeding them.

I breed pearl gouramies on a fairly regular basis (and have bred several other species - including three-spots). Actualy, three-spots are on of the easiest (if not the easiest) to spawn so they are a good one to start with. The major downside is their size and potential for aggression.

The first thing you'll need - as you know - is a breeding tank. Something at least 10 gallons is necessary but the bigger it is, the longer you'll be able to raise the fry without worrying about grow-out tanks or water changes. Note, BTW, that this is an important consideration - three-spots (even their fry) are quite hardy and they'll produce hundreds of eggs - what will you do with all those fry? I should say that it's rare that someone gets many more than 10-20 the first time they try to spawn gouramies as mortality rates can be high - but even this number is quite large - will you give them to your LFS? Will you have adequate grow-out space?

The size tank I'd suggest personaly is a 20 gallon but only half-fill it. It's the surface area that's most important for the adults and the water level should be low if you want to maximise the number of fry that survive and if you want to make sure the male retrieves all sunken eggs while spawning. Later you'll have to fill it up so that the fry aren't over-crowded.

What I tend to use for breeding is a large plastic storage box. Anything at all, provided it's food-safe, will work. The big upside is that this is extremely cheap and you can get as large a volume as you like. The downside is that you cannot see through the sides clearly (most are at least partly opague). This is only realy a problem if something goes wrong though. In fact, fi all things go well, opague sides are good as they make the breeding fish feel more relaxed. Avoid anything dark colored - white or light grey etc is best - this way you can see even tiny fry quite clearly from above.

In this tank put a sponge filter and heater and set the temperature to about 78-79 deg F - you may need to take that up to 82 to get the fish to spawn but this is usualy unecessary with three-spots. Add, also, a ceramic pot or similarly simple cave-like ornament (this is for the female) and either some floating plants that you can easily remove or a styrofoam cup cut lengthways (browse the betta forum FAQs on breeding - there must be something about this there). These floating things are to provide the male's nest with support. Once the fry are free-swimming, it's best to remove all objects - this'll make monitoring them easier and they'll be able to get hold of food easier as well.

A light isn't necessary but the room the breeding tank/container is in should be relatively bright. This'll ensure the fry can see their food and will also mean the male has an easier time of caring for the nest.

Cycle the tank fishless (I skip this step by running the sponge filter I'm planning to use in an established tank for a couple of weeks beforehand). Then perform a large water change with dechlorinated water - you need to remove all of it so the water's as fresh as possible. This'll reduce the number of water changes you need with the newly hatched fry in the tank.

You can put the female in for a week or so and, during this time, condition both the female and male with as many live and frozen foods - and the occasional veggie - as possible. If the female is looking gravid and both are healthy, you can try introducing the male. take care to acclimatise fish when you move them from one tank to another - the temperature will probably be different for one. You can put the male in a plastic bag as you'd get him from an LFS for this - this is also a chance to see how the female reacts and whether the male looks interested. Many a fight can be avoided by watching how they react to each otehr's presence this way.

Then you just put them together and hope for the best

Once the male and female have spawned (you'll see the male rap around the female and she'll release eggs which he'll fertilise and ensure are in the nest), the male will usualy become quite aggressive towards the female. Even if he doesn't, she can be returned to the main tank - no need to keep her in the breeding tank and she deserves a rest. A couple of days (at most) later, the eggs will have hatched and the fry will be free-swimming. In the meantime, don't bother feeding the male. Most of mine won't eat during this time anyway and it's best to avoid 'polluting' the water.

Anyway, with the fry free-swimming, it's time to remove the male and start feeding. This is where it's important that you've prepaired some kind of miniscule live food. I tend to use microworms but baby brine shrimp or vinegar eels are good too. The real issue here is that you must eb prepaired a good few weeks before spawning (less with the shrimp) or your fry could starve. in fact, at the very beginning, many fry can't even take these large foods and need infusoria (these are easy to culture). You can try liquid egg-layer foods of the commercialy sold type and follow the instructions - these actualy serve as good infusoria-food themselves so you can use it to culture them. As the fry grow they'll be able to take larger and larger foods- train them onto powdered flake (but feed them some live things also) as soon as possible. This'll make things easier both for you and their future owners but, mroe importantly, live foods are messier than flake.

Which is something else I should add - by now you'll filled the tank right to the top if it wasn't full already and you'll have to start doing some partial water changes. What I do is syphon as I would any ordinary tank but all of the water goes into a white (or light-colored) bucket - this way you can see the fry you've sucked up (and you almost inevitably will suck some up ) and return them safely to the tank. Make sure the water you use to replace that which you've removed has the same chemistry - including temp. - or you risk killing all the fry.

That's basicaly it, I think . For info. on live foods, check out the pinned topics in the betta section - they have some stuff on culturing foods. Also, search this forum for more gourami breeding threads - I know there are quite a few - as well as the betta section seeing as bettas are just another gourami species and are pretty much the same to breed (+ jars).

Have fun
 
For the GBR's, if your not already I'd advise twice weekly water changes - I've noticed with mine that if I do any less than that they become stressed. That may be because my waters alot harder than its generally recommended to keep them in, but the tank as a whole seem alot happier since I went from weekly to twice weekly changes.
 
For the GBR's, if your not already I'd advise twice weekly water changes - I've noticed with mine that if I do any less than that they become stressed. That may be because my waters alot harder than its generally recommended to keep them in, but the tank as a whole seem alot happier since I went from weekly to twice weekly changes.


Me too! I do twice-weekly changes for my GBRs. My water is hard too. (Well, not mine personally :hyper: but from the tap).

You can tell just by looking at the rams colouration how content they are with things. When they are happy their colours are brilliant and clear, when they are sad/stressed the sparkly blue bits will fade and you'll notice a greyish/black colouration taking over).

This week I've been stressed because I ran out of water conditioner so wasn't able to do the water change on Weds night - have got some coming tonight, ordered online - and last night the rams were letting me know they were NOT happy one little bit (colours starting to fade and gettig that blackish hue) and I felt so helpless. So first thing I will do when I get home later is sort their tank out, pronto!!

But, yes, they are gorgeous fishies and I know anyone with GBRs will enjoy keeping them, even if they are a little extra work - worth it!

Athena
 

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