Tropical Fish Forum
Tropical Fish Keeping Help and Advice => New Fishkeepers => Topic started by: maddison on June 03, 2014, 03:03:19 PM
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this morning loads of bubbles on top of tank and male honey gourami very attentive, does this mean my fish have reproduced? we only set up this tank a month and the fish have been in 2 weeks which I think seems to quick, any advice will be most welcome as we are new to this
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Hi Maddison :wave:
Sounds like you have yourselves a bubble nest :) It doesn't mean that your gouramis have bred, just that they have made a bubble nest ready for depositing the fertilised eggs in....did you intend to breed them?
The nest are easily disturbed by water movement, and I used to scoop mine out when either my colisa or my betta made one. It sounds a bit mad, but I used to try and do it without them seeing me as I always felt guilty about it :-[
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Gourami eggs are quite hard to see. I've always found the best way is with a magnifying glass. You are looking for bubble sized eggs hidden in the bubbles, but instead of clear like the bubbles, the eggs are translucent.
Male gouramis will defend the bubble nest even without eggs, but he will also chase the female. When he gets really determined to chase all the other fish away, including the female, that's the sign that they have spawned.
However, in a tank with other fish any eggs will likely get eaten; or if the eggs don't, the fry will especially once they become free swimming.
There is a thread of mine somewhere with pics of honey gourami fry, I'll see if I can find it ........
Here it is (http://www.thinkfish.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,320.0.html). You can see how small the fry are compared to duckweed.
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:wave: thanks for the advice were going to leave the bubbles and see what happens ( not even sure if we if we have a male and a female or 2 males)
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Which colour morph are your honey gouramis? The wild kind are easy to sex, the yellow ones aren't too bad but the red ones are very difficult.
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they are yellowish going to orange tails and have a dark blue/purple black mark on their underside hope this sounds ok :fishy1: :raspberries
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That's the colour of mine. Unfortunately, only males get the blue-black on the undersides so if both your gouramis have it, they are both males. Females have less orange on their tails and usually have a darker stripe running down their sides from nose to tail. Not all females do have the stripe which is why I've always chosen the fish with the most obvious stripe together with the one with the most vibrant orange tail. I have attached photos of my previous pair to show what I mean.
Two males will probably be OK together, on their own. One will be the dominant fish, and he may or may not pick on the subordinate fish. This is more likely to happen as they mature (as the fish in the shop will be quite young). But honey gouramis are among the less aggressive species so you might get away with it. Problems will arise if you get a female as then they'd have something to fight over.
One thing you might consider is to see if the shop would let you swap one of yours for a female. If you do go down this route, choose the fish with the darkest stripe down the side. The female in my photo has just the hint of a stripe but it shows what to look for.
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:wave: thanks for that ( its so much easier to check against your photo) we do have 2 males as both our's have the dark blue stripe on the underside