# Gourami Breeding Journal



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

So this past friday I picked up my female three spot gourami. I now have a male of the blue coloration and a female of the gold coloration. I have had the male in a 10g tank with some hornwort, Brad's algae, and a few fake plants all floating on the surface, and I have been feeding him 2-3 times a day (rotating between flakes and frozen bbs). I added the female into the tank after acclimating her, and the male started showing off. He changed colors almost to the point of being Opaline in coloration, looked gorgeous I must say. They chased each other around for about 10 min, then settled into swimming around with each other. I kept my feeding regiment going strong every day, and I lowered the water down about 50% (my 10g is now about 4-5g of water) and kept the plants floating. I arranged the plants so the surface area is mostly covered, but underneath is plenty of room to swim and dance for them. For three days, they swam together and ate together, every once in a while they would change into spawning colors, but the male never built a bubble nest, though the female has gotten pretty plump now, hopefully with eggs!

Well today came (Monday 7/29) and I left for work at 14:00 with no news to give. While at work, my wife called me and let me know that she see's a small bubble nest in the middle of the tank in with some of the plants!! She said it is pretty small, but I am hoping the male keeps working on it and makes a decent sized one. When I get home tonight, I will be checking on this!!

Keeping fingers crossed, we have a bubble nest, the spawning shouldn't be too far off!

Updates to come tomorrow!


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

I got home last night and there was a small bubble nest, but no eggs at all. This morning, the bubble nest was gone. I am starting to think that the female is not accepting of the male. She is fairly bigger than him, and she chases him around. I have a feeling that I will be taking my male back to LFS and exchanging for a bigger male. I will keep them together for this week to see if anything happens though!


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

So new update!!

On Friday, I took my male back to LFS and exchanged him in for a gold/opaline male that is about 4" to 4.5" big. He was another trade in, so they just did a even exchange for me. I took him home and floated him for an hour just to gauge the females reaction to him. She seemed very interested in him and kept trying to go on her side next to the bag. I drip acclimated the male, put him in the tank with her, lowered the water some, and fed them some frozen mysis shrimp. By the next day, I had a bubble nest going! After I took the picture, I cut a styrofoam cup in half because it kept breaking apart and he refused to use any of the plants in the tank.

Sunday morning, I woke up to see their final spawn. Then he chased her away and wouldn't let her near the nest anymore, he even became aggressive towards me when I looked in the tank. I removed the female, put her back into the main tank, where she happily lives with guppies again lol.

Well this morning, I looked into the tank, and saw what seemed to be eggs with tails swimming around, probably about 10 of them (from what I could see). Everytime I got near the tank, the dad swam over, sucked them up, and spit them back into the nest!!

Seems like we will have some babies here!


----------



## Kehy (Apr 19, 2011)

Woo! Congrats!


----------



## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Very nice!Congrats on fry.
Enjoy!


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

Now its the fun part!! Making sure they are fed and I do things right!!


----------



## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Awesome! What fry foods do you have?


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

I have some of Brads magic Algae in the tank, I am making some green water as we speak (as of yesterday I should say) and for when they get a little bigger I have some frozen bbs for them


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

Oh and not to mention I had been working on a lot of infusoria in the tank as well.


----------



## Jaybird5 (Apr 27, 2013)

Well when they are full grown, give me a holler. I can take some off your hands


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

Jaybird5 said:


> Well when they are full grown, give me a holler. I can take some off your hands


Shall do!


----------



## jamnigh (Apr 24, 2013)

So update. The male busted through the makeshift divider I put into the tank. But he doesn't care or bother the fry at the moment, so no big deal. Working on getting another tank for him as we speak. Here is a picture of the dad (best I could get, doesn't like the camera I guess lol)



The fry are growing wonderfully!! Either haven't had any losses since the hatching, or the fry/dad are eating the dead ones for me. Here is the best picture I could gather of the fry as they are extremely small still. If you look hard enough, you can see little spots against the white background, those are the fry lol.



So far, I haven't fed the fry. They have been living off of Brads Magic Algae for about 3 days now, and if you look closely, every one always has a full belly on them! Hoping my green water is going to work so I have something else to give them as well!

Next update to come in a couple days


----------



## Auban (Aug 8, 2010)

im glad the algae is working for you. thank you for posting feedback!

im going to continue finding better ways to use the algae. i think i can manage it into a system that will prove to be even better than what i have already produced.

eventually, i hope to be able to produce a "breeders kit" that will be better for growing fry than anything currently in the trade.


----------

