Floating plants for gourami breeding

[madskraaer]

Hey guys! I've never had any fish laying eggs in my tank before, but now I have a couple of blue gouramis who I suspect, that they want to maid! I've been reading a lot about floating plants and food for the fry when they hatch(if I get any eggs of course), so my question is, how am I sure if the female is carrying eggs, and which floating plants and food do you recommend I get?
Thank you for any helping tips!


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[Fishobsessed7]

Floating plant are duckweed, frogbit, salvinia, just to name a couple


Fishobsessed7

 

[Andy Sager]

For gouramis that size, you might want to use watersprite or strands of hornwort or anacharis ( Elodea) and don;t plant them in the substrate. The gouramis will find an area with no water movement and use the plants there to make their nest. Keep in mind that it will be best to use a separate tank for breeding the fish than your main tank and you will need to remove the parents at different intervals during the post spawning process. Breeding gouramis is not like breeding other egg laying fish ( other than Bettas) so make sure you understand the process before getting started.
Hope this helps

 

[madskraaer]

Thank you very much guys! How big would you recommend the breeding tank should be?


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[madskraaer]

For gouramis that size, you might want to use watersprite or strands of hornwort or anacharis ( Elodea) and don;t plant them in the substrate. The gouramis will find an area with no water movement and use the plants there to make their nest. Keep in mind that it will be best to use a separate tank for breeding the fish than your main tank and you will need to remove the parents at different intervals during the post spawning process. Breeding gouramis is not like breeding other egg laying fish ( other than Bettas) so make sure you understand the process before getting started.
Hope this helps

Have I understood your comment right, if I think what you mean is, that I should just lay the plants in the aquarium, and not plant them into the gravel?


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[Fishfur]

Yes, that's what was meant. Floating plants are used to help anchor nests, and they'll incorporate leaves and bits of floating whatever in them. Be sure the tank does not have much current, as the fish do not like it and it breaks up the nests.

Are you sure you have a male/female pair though ? Often the dwarf gouramis in stores are all males, because most females don't have nearly as much colour and buyers prefer the brighter colours. Some females are darn near colourless in fact. Powder blue strain females are blue, but not nearly as blue as the boys are. Boys have a longer,pointed dorsal fin, females have a shorter, rounded one.

Males will build nests whether females are present or not and two males may fight, especially over a single female. Best kept in pairs or with 2-3 females to a male if you want them to breed. They can be difficult to keep alive for long, the stock from the fish farms has not been of good quality in the past ten years or so and many of these fish just seem to die suddenly for no obvious reason.

I sincerely hope this does not happen to yours.

 

[Andy Sager]

Not that it really matters much besides breeding tank size, but are you talking about Blue gourami ( Trichogaster trichopterus) or Blue dwarf Gourami ( Colisa lalia) ? Keep in mind that the powder blue Gourami is just a color morph of the dwarf gourami. The Blue Gourami will also have 3 black spots on each side which is why it is also called a 3 spot gourami. (Google the latin names for pics.)

 

[madskraaer]

Not that it really matters much besides breeding tank size, but are you talking about Blue gourami ( Trichogaster trichopterus) or Blue dwarf Gourami ( Colisa lalia) ? Keep in mind that the powder blue Gourami is just a color morph of the dwarf gourami. The Blue Gourami will also have 3 black spots on each side which is why it is also called a 3 spot gourami. (Google the latin names for pics.)

Yes, I'm very sure that it's a male and a female I've got, and it is a blue gourami - I'm going to upload a picture
So from what I've been reading from a lot of debates and from your posts, I'm gonna go buy a 20-30 gallon breeding tank, some floating plants, I'm going to keep the water at 28 degrees Celsius, and I will make sure to keep a low current until the eggs are hatched and then I will turn of the filter pump and feed the fry with infursia?



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[madskraaer]

And do you guys know what they're doing here? They were going around in circles like this for some time


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[fish wrangler]

http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/gourami/breedingpearl.php might help you out

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[Fishfur]

Good to know.. big difference between the dwarf gouramis and the larger ones in terms of survival and general hardiness. The larger species don't appear to share the problems that are being seen in the dwarf ones.. thankfully so.

 

[madskraaer]

I'm glad to hear! Thank you very much for the nice tips guys! I really appreciate!! - I hope I will do well on raising the fish!


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[Andy Sager]

Just as a side note, in the breeding tank, you don;t need to have any current or filtration at the beginning as the fish breath surface air and the fry really don;t like water movement until they develop their Labrynth organ. In fact, I watched some fish farmers set up their Gouramis for breeding and it was done just in an empty styro box, in a full box bag, with some floating plants, the 2 fish and kept in a climate controlled building. Once the fry developed their Labrynth, they were placed in their grow out facilities.
So don;t kill yourself trying to adjust filters and airlines. It's not necessary

 

[madskraaer]

Okay, sounds great! That is going to make my life a lot easier!! I'm hoping to put up the breeding tank within the next week!


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