j_guilliatt

Ok, so i finally have some gourami fry under a bubble nest in my 60 litre tank. I lowered the water level, turned off the filter. The female was fat the male was very deep blue and pretty. He had a few attempts at the bubblenest and then it sort of dispersed and i thought, oh... a failed attempt. So i fed them some live brine shrimp,filled the tank back up to the top (60 litres) turned the filter back on and went in there the next day and there were fry!! and a bubble nest. I don't know how that happened in 24hours... Anyway so as soon as i saw the fry (tiny but swimming) i assumed they were "freeswimming" and took the female out. She is now in my other 192 litre tank with a whole lot of guppies. I wasn't sure whether all the eggs have hatched, or whether the male still needed to be in there so i left him overnight and this morning i went in and his bubblenest is bigger and thicker. Is that normal? I fed the fry 3 times with liquifry no1 yesterday. Can someone tell me when i should take the male out, how long i should feed the fry liquifry for etc etc?? I'm sort of lost at this stage, partly because i didn't think i'd get there..
Sorry for the epic post,
Thanks!

Butterfly

The epic post was great with lots of needed information. After the fry are free swimming the male needs to come out also. The fry will need to be fed at least three times a day and at least 50% water changes every day. Monitor your water parameters any ammonia or Nitrates will kill your fry. If you have time i would suggest dividing the water changes in to two a day instead of one huge one. If you siphon your water into a white bucket you will be able to see if you siphon any of the fry out. It will probably be at least a week before they are big enough for baby brine shrimp.
Carol

j_guilliatt

Thanks! Any explanation for why it all happened so quickly?... Like i thought the eggs take 36 hours to hatch? I've taken out the male, so they're all in there by their lonesome.
Any substitute for baby brine shrimp? Are they essential? What about egg yolk... I've heard that's good.

Butterfly

the eggs amy have already been in the bubble nest and you didn't know it.
The liqui fry your using, egg yolk are all good but they can foul a tank really fast thats why the water changes are so very important. BBS are good for them, you might try first bites by Hikari but they have to be a bit bigger.
Carol

j_guilliatt

Ok, ta!

j_guilliatt

Hello! Its been a while- i now have at least 20 gourami fry swimming around in my 60 litre tank. I know you're supposed to seperate the bigger ones from the smaller ones at some stage, but i'm not sure quite what that stage is. When do you seperate them? I'm still feeding them baby brine shrimp... should i be moving on to something else for the larger ones? The largest is now about 1.5 cm, the smallest maybe half that. thanks in advance.

GouramiGirl1221

I'm not at all a fry expert, but I'm feeding my baby sword very finely ground flakes as well as tubifex worms.

j_guilliatt

Thanks. You wouldn't happen to know anything about seperating big from little??

GouramiGirl1221

No I don't...sorry. I wasn't trying for fry...I just had two girls that came to me pregnant.

cerianthus

If left in large surface area tank, may not have to unless big differences in sizes as they grow. Sometimes overcrowding would lower the chance of one being killed by others
(merry-go-round; busy chasing each other).
Ooops! forgot to Congrat. Congrat!
BTW, What kind?

j_guilliatt

Sorry, i lost the plot with the replies. They're Three-Spot. The size difference is quite big- the bigger ones are growing much faster than the little. I was sort of worried about food-competition- maybe the smaller ones arn't getting enough. Smallest are now about 1cm, biggest 2.5...
Also, the mum died shortly after breeding (not cause she was attacked, don't worry!), and so now the male is in my 195 litre by his lonesome. Are there rules about breeding offspring with parents? Will he pair up with one of the fry when they're bigger, or will he just attack her?

thanks for replies!
Jess

catfishtabbi

I don't think it is an immediate concern being that they do not breed until maturity. I have heard that you should breed gouramis at 2.5" or more and they should be from seperate frys. CONGRATS!

Cordi

tbh, you shouldn't really let the male breed with one of it's children.

this could lead to problems with future fry, like low immune system and deformaties. that and you'll be waiting a long time before the fry are ready to bread.