Effective Use Of Liquifry.

Absolutely no experience of this but did a bit of "googling" and there were some suggestions of feeding Liquifry with a dropper - would that work ie without interfering/ruining the bubblenest?

The fry don't need feeding while they are in the bubble nest as they will be consuming the yolk sac. They only need feeding once they become free swimming. And at this point, dad could view them as his food.

If you think about it, how would food get to the fry in a bubble nest in the wild?

Fish that show parental care are often different from egg scatterers, and I think it's the latter that the liquifry instructions refer to. With egg scatterers, the fry won't stand much chance of survival if they go through a 'wriggler' stage. They need to be able to swim off and hide from the second they hatch. For fish like gouramis and some cichlids, the parents care for the newly hatched fry, so they can go through a 'wriggler' stage between hatching and becoming free swimming. I use the word wriggler as that's what this intermediate stage is called with south American cichlids.

The danger of moving the bubble nest without the father is that the fry need to be kept at the surface at this stage; if they fall out of the nest, dad puts them back. If he wasn't there, they wouldn't be able to get back. You could try moving the nest and the father, though he might get so stressed he'd eat the fry.



Hmmm, not sure what to suggest for the best.......

Dunno if it was a flukey moment but I just saw the female swim over and spit a baby into the nest. Or maybe she just didnt like the taste. Considering I read that it's only the males that croak and I actually saw the female do it, I wouldn't be surprised to find the female sometimes assumes a parental role too.

Also the fry don't seem to be hanging tail down anymore, they're more horizontal.

Who knows, if I can get them to breed successfully I might see if PFK will accept an article from me. 

Do you have any pictures? 

Do you mean a sponge filter powered by an air pump?

The one shop worker I trust told me to get one with a weighted base rather than the kind that attach to the tank with suckers. It is possible for the sucker type to come unstuck, float then stop working whereas weighted ones can't do that.

If an air pump causes too much flow for fry, it is quite easy to reduce the flow. All you need is an air line splitter, for example this. The pump is connected to the single outlet on the right; the filter to one of the two outlets on the same side. Then the spare outlet is opened to bleed the air through reducing the amount of air being pushed through the filter and slowing the water flow. That's what I've had to do with the sponge filter in my betta's tank. Bleeding air off doesn't strain the pump as much as using a single tap to slow down the air flow.