Dwarf Gourami nesting/breeding questions...

[yodafett]

So my wife and I purchased 3 dwarf neon blue gourami over the weekend. I remembered my sister having a gourami in our comunity tank as a kid and thought they were attractive enough the wife would like them too, bonus! Well, after a couple days of getting settled, we noticed that Monday night, one of them had built a big bubble nest in one corner of the tank. He wasn't overly protective of it, but he didn't want anyone else really touching the nest itself, so as long as they stayed a couple inches away, he seemed fine. Well, yesterday I say the video posted here by NinjaPenguin and thought, "That must be nice, the only fish we can breed are guppies, and our Julli Cories"... Last night when I got home, he wouldn't let anyone including the cories in "his" half of the tank. He would chase away anyone withing about 8-10 incehs of the nest. The nest itself is smaller, but several of the bubbles are larger, about the size of a pea, and seem to have an "oily" or iridescent sheen to them. I tried to take some pics, but they didn't really turn out with enough details to be of help. I notices in NP's video, it said that 24 hours later, there were fry swimming around.

Do Gourami really go from eggnest to fry in a 24 hour window?

Does it sound like we should be looking for some when I get home, or just a freak coincidence?

If we do have baby Gourami, do I need to take any special care, aside from crushing the food a bit finer for them?

Are they likely to be consumed without adequate cover protection or a seperate tank?

I guess some of this I should have looked up before purchasing them, but like I said, we've never REALLY had luck with breeding. I mean, who CAN'T breed guppies, and I heard that cories were somewhat difficult to breed, so assumed that was a fluke...

:help: Any help and feedback would be great! :help:

[TwoTankAmin]

Gouramis spawn pretty much the same way bettas do. The odds of your getting live fry in a community tank are very small. Another danger is he is now in agressive/protective mode and it is possible he will injure or kill other fish.

If you did get very lucky and get fry, crushed flake would not be the right food for them. You need tiny food and preferably live.

If you want to try and spawn your fish raise fry you will need another small tank and to do some research on how to set it up and when to remove the mom and later the dad.

[yodafett]

Thx for the info and quick relpy!

Does it sound like that is what's actually happening though? Or am I just imagining things?

[NinjaPenguin]

You should notice a color change in both male and female in the 24 hours leading up to the spawning after which the male becomes a lot more aggressive. Heres a video of my Pearls "getting it on"...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpzRwN7ZOMs

Might help you recognise the signs when they occur! :)

I second the second tank option - I have a 5g full of nothing but tiny happy and safe gourami fry - siphoned out of the nest with a piece of hose 48 hours after hatching.

Raw egg yolk and crushed flakes seem to go down well! :)

[yodafett]

Thanks for the extra links and the info, NP.

Like i said earlier, this was totally unexpected. The cories came out of the blue, and the guppies we never really cared about the fry. If that is indeed what happened/is happening, I really hope we can get them to kanoodle when we have a secondary tank set up. I doubt the betta in our 5 gallon would be an adequate tankmate for gourami fry... ;)