With just a pair and no dither fish as in a community you must not keep them together except for the spawing...
A dwarf gourami male will viciously maim and kill an unwilling female in small spaces. When there are only two, with most common kept species of gourami; the stronger fish will harrass the other into ill health.
So you need to
move her as soon as the deed is done..and CONDITION FIRST.
If she is not nearly bursting in eggs she will play the coquette...or worse for her..refuse outright. Sometimes a female may not like a certain color of morph
(my friend downtown has a flame female that will only spawn with neons. And our bettas are that way all the time).
The water where the fry are to be needs to be very gently filtered and about 84 degrees. The water height need to be around 6 inches at max or the fry may drown. And the parameters need to be DEAD ON beofre they are free swimming.
Becuse they are very susceptible to any change in the water for the next two weeks..DON"T mess with it! just use a baster to remove any visible muck and trikle in any water loss through cleaning th same way.
be sure teh tank the fry are in is well covered until week 4-5. During the 3-4th week the labyrinth organ develops and you could lose the whole lot to pneumonia if the air of the surface is cooler than their water by any measurable degree.
you also should remove the male by the 3rd 4th day they are free swmming. Sooner if he exhibits egg eating (not the same as swishing an egg with spit and returning it to the nest..you will see 20= dissapear a day if he begins..DON"T feed bubblenesters BBS as a spawning tool..it develops egg eaters!)
You are best off witha bare bottom tank for easy cleaning and to keep an eye on the fry. At week four start raising the water level up a couple inches per week. And start bumping the temp down at week 6 a degree every few days until they are at the temp an average owner will keep them (77 if they are lucky).
WARNING: Dwarf Gourami fry are THE SMALLEST bubble nester fry excluding some liquorice varieties. They are very very hard to raise
..and females are NOT going to be brightly colored. Most morph females look like wilds with an extra color wash..solid females are not common yet.
And if your male and female are not both powder blues..the colors will muddy and you will get a large portion of wild type coloration (striped).
Live food needs to be up and running BEFORE they are free swimming(day 3-4) or you will lose the first hatchers to fade.
Have meds ready for the female when she is removed form the tank in case he is an especialy aggressive breeder.
Recent case example:My own male killed two females by maiming out of three in a 18
gal custom long and my last was tore up and maybe was healing until an unfortunate incident with some diet coke.
Out of a spawn of nearly 300 I have 2. And I have bred many different labyrinths before, mostly gouramy labyrinths. And have raised an ending numbers no less than 90 with some. Of course some of this spawn, I sacrificed to be food for a pair of royal knife spawn who were egg hitchhikers. But I separated 2 tanks of 30 out to raise. 2 out of 60 when I was home nearly 24/7 is harsh....!
Sound complicated?..how do pros do it? :| 8O
They have many tanks adn can keep dividing the fry by maturation as needed....they have years in experience with the specific breed.
And of course in asia...the water is already perfect and so are the temps...it is the native region of the animals
They let them self raise in ponds and just skims some out...^_^ And labor for helping hands is CHEAP..even with everything else being equal... 8)
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Good Luck! @@@@@@@@
*may return to edit..I am really tired...^_^
