Paradise Fish surprise spawn....what do I do?

[maxwell1295]

My male paradise gourami has been building bubble nest for weeks. Either I have destroyed them during PWCs or the otos I had in the tank would do it while jetting around the tank and generally acting a fool. I removed them to my 30gal when I saw the female harassing them.

Anyway, I happened to look into the tank about 5 mins ago and saw the male viciously chasing the female. He has chased her before in an effort to get her to spawn, but nothing too serious and she seemed to handle it well. This was different because he was out for blood! I looked a little closer and saw him recovering some eggs that had fallen from the nest. That's when I realized that they had spawned. She was trying to eat the eggs and was successful in getting to some of them (I saw her eat 4-5 eggs).

I removed her from the tank and will put her in my Asian tank with a pair of Honey Gouramis, Cherry Barbs, and a Hillstream Loach. She should be okay in there for now.

My question is what do I do now? I assume he will take care of the eggs and the fry initially when/if they hatch. What happens after that?

How long will he tend to them?

Am I going to have to remove him at some point or should I be looking to set up a separate fry tank?

I don't have one right now but I guess I can set up my new 29gal tank for them. I have a AC50 filter and lighting on the way. No substrate, but that shouldn't be an issue right now anyway.

What do I feed the fry when they're ready to eat?

How will I know when they're ready to eat live/prepared fry foods?

I'm off to Google to search "breeding paradise gouramis".....I'll check this thread in a little while.

Thanks in advance!

 

[dskidmore]

Google would have been my primary source, so you're probably ahead of me there. In general, I've never seen a any species of fry turn down boiled egg yolks. Powdered flake food is a convienient thing when you don't have time to prepare special foods. I've heard alot about using yeast, but I have not tried it myself.

They won't eat anything at all until they've consumed thier yolk sack. As for larger live foods, try them occasionally, and if you see darting fry, they think they're ready to eat that food.