Congratulations on the successful breeding of the fry so far. I think that the Liquifry No. 1 is ideal for feeding these guys at this stage. I am currently raising my only Panda Cory baby on it at the moment until it is big enough to take in some BS. The liquid has tiny particles suspended in the liquid which is small enough for these tiny mouths to eat so early on. Can't wait to see pics of the babies, but why don't you post pics of the parents in the mean time so that we can get an idea of what the little ones will look like?
Hi Marc, In response to your asking me about these fishes, I will now reply. All gouramis are actually good parents, by that I mean the males. The male makes a bubble nest and he then gets the female to lay eggs with him by pressing the eggs out of her body as you will have seen already. After all this love making he chases her away and at that point one should remove the female from the tank or else she will get hammered. Then the male will actually look after the fry very carefully, so ok, you did not notice that they had spawned, but next time around leave him with the babies. Then with regard to feeding you have a problem because they are so small. When I used liquifry many years ago it was pretty useless, but I know that they have improved its formulation over the years and it may now work. However, the best food for the tiny fry is in actual microencapsulated foods which I don't think that you can get in SA. I used to import them from Germany and they were fantastic, I used to raise tiny threadfin fry on the stuff. I have recently bought some JBL fry food in Germany which works quite well, but again, I don't know if you can get it here. I am not a fan of boiled egg, because with all of this fry feeding, pollution is a serious problem which leads to fry deaths and you can easily pollute a tank with egg. I also find that you cannot get it fine enough for these fry to eat. The other alternative is to start an infusoria culture, but infusoria are basically a collection of microscopic aquatic organisms and these can also be quite difficult to use because they are so variable. However, you actually only need these foods for a short period of about a week and then the fry are already big enough to take microworms, again feed sparingly and fish put the microworms in water so that you can spread them properly in the tank. They also sink so feed sparingly, gourami fry stay pretty up just under the surface of the water and dont go deep down. Then as soon as the fry are big enough for freshly hatched bs use this as bs have the highest nutritional value of any foods. Feed them on this on an ongoing basis for a few weeks and then start feeding finely ground flakes preferably something like spirulina flakes. You can also even feed the tiny fry on some finely ground spirulina flakes, but again feed sparingly. During all this feeding you must do smaller water changes every couple of days to remove the uneaten food and ramshorn snails do a fantastic job of eating up uneaten food. I have ramshorns in all my fry tanks for this purposes and this helps tremendously. If you raise somewhere between 20-30 fry per batch you can consider that you are doing well. What also helps is to have plants on the surface of the water such as water sprite which helps with the bubble nest but also with the first feeding as tiny microscopic bugs also occur on these plants. Kind regards, Dirk
Hi @Dirk Thank you very much for the response. I do have ramshorns in the tank and there are quite a few plants on the surface, one of which is Elodia Egeria (BL I know!) but I will try and do a small water change (maybe a syphon with sponge over the inlet or something). The water in my 100l guppy tank had algae bloom the other day. Can I use this water for infusoria or to start a culture and at this time, is there any point? Thanks, Marc
Yes the algal bloom water is good. Don't start the water changes too soon as it is difficult not to syphon off fry, but you can try with a small air hose and you can also use an airstone in reverse to serve as a filter for the water or the sponge as you say. Hope you manage to raise some fry because dwarf gouramis are actually stunning and completely underrated. Are yours the wild type ones or are they the blue or red mutants? Kind regards, Dirk
Hi @Dirk I will scoop some of the water out of my guppy tank then. I will try the airstone trick and see if I can get that working. I love my dwarf gouramis but these are probably the "mutant" type and not the wild sort. Here is a pic of mine (sorry about the blurry pics - taken with my phone). What should the wild ones look like? This is my breeding male and here is one of the male (at the back) and my female
Hi Marc, that specific male fish is a wild type dwarf gourami. However the male in the foreground on the second pic is the red mutant. Just a word of warning, I see your fishes have very full bellies. You must be careful not to feed this much as gouramis are susceptible to bloat if they are overfed like this, so feed a little less, they will still be doing fine. Kind regards, Dirk
Thanks @Dirk. The female shows amazing dark lines when they are ready to breed. Also, he went very very dark (his blue became very prominent and much darker)before they started courting. Is this normal? I will feed less. Maybe only in the morning? It's a 300l community tank again so I am trying to feed a bunch of different fish. Will cut the feeding and see how it goes.
Had a quick count last night and there are in excess of 70 fry in the tank. They are starting to get big (about 3mm) :cheesy:
Congrats!!! I always love breeding fish, it is so exciting to raise the fry and watch the spawning. Especially with pretty fish such as the dwarf gouramis.
By the way, I noticed the plant in the tank, looks like a cabomba type. Pls tell me where u got it! I have looked at a few shops and havent seen any! A few people said they are quite common but have had no success in my search.......
Thank you @FishLover. This is my first time with bubble nest breeders so super excited. I check the tank all the time when I'm home. I'm just waiting for them to be bigger than Brine Shrimp! :bigsmile:
The plant is Limnophila sessiliflora and not Cabomba. Cabomba is and will remain, blacklisted. Kind regards, Dirk
I have hydra in my grow out tank. What can I do? Supposedly they kill fry! I believe I can use formalin but is it safe for fry? Anybody have any ideas? @Dirk - What should I do about the hydra? Thanks, Marc
Under no circumstances use formalin, this may kill your hydra but will also kill your fishes! How big are the fry? If they are big enough they will be ok. Kind regards, Dirk
Thanks Dirk. Am not a plant expert on plants so thanks for that info. Anyway, Good luck marchawke with raising the fry, I have raised bettas only once before but its so cool to watch them grow up! Where do you live and what kind of bettas are they. I will be interested in a male when they are a bit bigger. Mine died at the beginning of the year.
@Dirk - Thanks. Will avoid the formalin for now. When the fry are no longer in this tank, is formalin the best option to kill Hydra or what should I do/use? The fry vary in size but are about 1-1.5mm bodies with another 2-2.5mm tails at a guess. I'm hatching brine shrimp as I type this. Hopefully the fry will be big enough to eat the BS. They are just over a week old. @FishLover - My fry are Dwarf Gourami and I live in Cape Town
