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about 2 weeks ago I set up a breeding tank for my dwarf gourami's. 10 gallons, planted, 26 watt flourescent light, rocks and sand for substrate.
tank mates are a bristlenose pleco, a mystery snail, a pair of pandas, a young dojo, and a young flying fox.

A couple of nights ago I saw My male flame gourami, and female standard dwarf gourami breeding, so the next morning I took out the female and put her back in the 55 gallon with the others.

Now I have about 40 fry that are staying in the nest that the male is maintaining.
They have an interesting behavior, when I tap the nest about ten fry fall out usually and the male swims around gathering them in his mouth and then spits them back out into the nest.

The fry are about 2 mm. long. I am excited about this because I have been trying to get them to breed in my 55 for awhile. I am also interested in what kind of hybridtized pattern that they will have.

-Vincent

An update on the gourami. I have removed all of the Adult gourami's now and the fry are now free swimming. Their are probably anywhere from 25-50 of them. I'm getting some liquid food for them.

Does anyone know anything about caring for the baby gourami's? Mughal if you read this I would like to here from you since you keep many gourami's.

Has anyone seen what his hybrid looks like?

-Vincent

Another update,
the gourami's were all eaten after the male was removed by pandas, the yoyo, and the flying fox.


However, now I have rebred them and I now have a new larger batch in the tank that are already 3 and a half days old. The only tank mate they have noww is a BN pleco. They are looking very healthy can't wait to see what they look like.

here are some pics of the breeder tank.


the proud father
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/budzilla_2006/DSCN0072.jpg

the nest
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/budzilla_2006/DSCN0062.jpg

a one day old fry, sorry its blurry but the fry is the size of a pin head
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/budzilla_2006/DSCN0071.jpg
The tank mate BN
http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k82/budzilla_2006/DSCN0075.jpg

-Vincent

Yoyos are very good fry eaters. Not a good tank mate for anything you want to breed. Plecos would likely ignore labyrinth fry since they are more top swimming. Will probably be hard to feed them liquid food in such a large tank without polluting it. The fry just kinda of float and wiggle around until they bump into some food so unless they are concentrated in a small area you have to feed large amounts of food to cover the whole tank. If the tank is well planted and contains applesnails there should be enough food naturally there to raise at least a fair amount of them.

Another reason to use a small tank to raise labyrinth fry is that their labyrinth organ does not develop as well in deep tanks and they need to be able to reach the surface easily. Usually it's recommended to keep them in around 6" of water until 4-6weeks of age to get the maximum number of survivors. Cold or dry air above the tank can also lead to death and some go so far as to wrap the entire top in plastic to keep in heat and humidity.

I don't have a problem with temperature but I'll let the water level drop some.
the tank is well planted with a few baby snails in it.
so I shouldn't add my food, until they are bigger right?
well thanx for the info, that was the kind of information that I am looking for


-Vincent

You can add liquid food but it's very easy to mess up the water quality in the tank using it. They also won't find most of it if you don't get it right on top of them. I found it to be more trouble than helpful. Livefood and frozen food works much better. Greenwater would be ideal for them until they can eat baby brine shrimp. Most gourami fry I've had would also take frozen bbs as soon as they were big enough so I didn't have to raise live all that often.

ok, this sounds good. I have easy acces to live or frozen brine shrimp and also live mosquito larvae. I'll save my liquid food for my guppy fry.

-Vincent