Are these eggs?! No bubbles anymore, but unknown orbs remain?

[Vengified]

Well, I got Alum for the plants, as I read that will get the snails and eggs if left for a while, but generally leaves plants unharmed, and is neutralized by prime when soaked in a bucket of prime water and put back in tank.

I intend to remove gravel, at least for a while, to possibly put the male in the tank, with a lower water level and sponge filter, divider so he can see a female, and then remove it to let them breed, do it all the RIGHT way, and see if him raising a brood on his own, in his own tank, until he feels his job is done, will help him calm down. I figure if the sponge and plants are in there, there will be sufficient BB for this, and a bare bottom will make it easier for him to find straggler fry, and me to find leftover food etc. I obviously wont be doing this the day I dip the plants, be a few weeks after. Though I also considered leaving the snails be, and just trying the breeding thing after the guppies go, so that maybe there will be more infusoria and microorganisms for the gourami fry? Not sure on your thoughts?

I tried the salt thing, when my poor Sophie was sick, and the snails just kept breeding despite the salt. Most of them are bladder snails I believe, or pond snails. Perfectly round smooth see-thru shells, and they are constantly having snail orgies...

If nothing else, I'll strip it all, bleach it, and start over with no plants, or snail free plants, and ACTUALLY use it as a QT/hospital tank, like I was supposed to do in the first place. Lol.

 

[Colin_T]

The snails in the pics are Lymnaea pond snails and they usually die from salt without any issues. They produce clusters of jelly like eggs on plants so check the plant leaves and stems for soft clear mushy blobs.

When you use salt for snails you have to add heaps of salt. Not just a couple of tablespoons per 20 litres, but a couple of pounds of salt. You add so much salt that it doesn't dissolve, and leave the salt like that for a week. If you don't use enough salt or leave the salt in the tank for long enough, the snails just close their operculum and wait it out.

Copper sulphate will wipe them out really fast. Just remove all the fish and carbon from the filter, then triple dose with copper sulphate. Leave it for a few days and then drain and refill several times. Add some new carbon and replace the carbon a couple of times before you add any shrimp.

Another way to get rid of the snails is with loaches. Small species of Botia will chew em up pretty quickly. However, the loaches will need a bigger tank eventually but you won't mind getting another tank

 

[Vengified]

However, the loaches will need a bigger tank eventually but you won't mind getting another tank

I CERTAINLY wouldnt mind at all! My wife on the other hand... I wouldn't want to get on her bad side, especially with her so pregnant and crazy!

I would love some assassin snails, but cant fins them around here, and havent wanted to spend the $20 just for shipping, plus cost of assassins. The LFS may get some in eventually. Not as worried about the 10g pictured, as I am about my 20g display tank.

And do snails actually contribute to developing/growing micro cultures and infusoria and such? Some of the guides I found on making infusoria for fry, said to put some snails in the container, to help create and feed the micro organisms. My thought was if it is indeed true, that the abundance of snails, might actually be beneficial in that tank, if I were to try and let the honeys breed, so the fry would have some food available. Of course I will culture some as well, and picked up a brine shrimp hatchery kit for when the time comes.

But when I am ready to get rid of them permanently, I'll try the massive amount of salt first, since I am guessing it's easier to get rid of when all is said and done, than copper or bleach or any chemicals.

 

[seangee]

I have loads of MTS in both of my tanks. Yeah yeah I know Colin hates them . I think they make a valuable contribution to the ecosystem so I actually introduced them. Their population is kind of self regulating in that less food means less snails. Lots of snails don't neccessarily mean dirty tank though when you have a lot of plants.

Every couple of months I pick out the big ones I can see in the nano (15G) and pour a little boiling water into the jug. I do this far less often in the community tank (55G) but that does have dwarf chain loach (sids) and more space for them to hide.

FWIW the sids are cool (need a bigger tank than yours though) but aren't really effective snail killers. They do eat them and help keep the numbers down but wouldn't clear the tank.

 

[Colin_T]

Any fish or snail poop or dead plant leaves in the water will break down and produce bacteria. Over time infusoria (usually paramecium) get into the water and eat the bacteria. Baby fish eat the paramecium.

In an aquarium you want to minimise the fish poop because it also encourages other types of bacteria, including bad ones that affect fish. You also need lots of fish poop to get enough infusoria to feed a batch of fry. Most of the paramecium get removed from the water by the filter.

The best way to get a regular supply of infusoria is to use a large plastic storage container (100+ litres). You fill it with tap water and then add plant matter. Lettuce is one of the cleaner and better choices. You add 1 entire lettuce for every 20 litres of water. Break, crush or shred the lettuce before adding it to the tank. Add an airstone to this mixture of water & leaves and have it bubbling away at a reasonable rate. Put a lid on the container and let it run for a few weeks.

The leaves break down and bacteria starts to feed on the rotting leaves. If the culture is not aerated during this time it goes black and becomes anaerobic, and it stinks. Aeration prevents this from happening. After a period of time infusoria start to grow in the culture and they eat the bacteria. When this happens the water will start to clear and develop a slight yellow tinge from the tannins in the leaves. The water will not smell bad and if you remove the airstone and allow the water to settle for 10-15 minutes, you will see tiny white specks moving about in groups. These are the infusoria. You can use a fine mesh net (5 micron net) or just use a small plastic container to scoop these clusters out. You add the infusoria to the container with the fry and the fish eat them as their first food.

If you use a container to scoop the infusoria out, you should check the temperature, pH and ammonia levels in the water. The pH will usually be below 7.0 and there will usually be ammonia in the water. If there is a pH difference or high levels of ammonia in the infusoria water, you should try to reduce the amount of water added to the rearing tank.

Whilst I use and recommend lettuce leaves for this type of culture, any sort of non toxic plant leaf can be used. People even use banana and apple peel.

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Green water is another good food source for baby fish. Use a large plastic storage container and fill it with water. Add 1 level tablespoon of lawn fertiliser for every 20 litres (5 gallons) of water. Aerate if possible and leave the container in the sun or somewhere there is lots of light. After a few weeks the water turns into green soup and you can either add the fry to the container of green water, or add green water to the rearing tank.

If you add green water to the rearing tank, you need to add enough green water so the rearing tank has a green tinge to it. You also need to keep adding green water to keep the green tinge in it. If the water in the rearing tank goes clear, there will not be enough algae for the fry to eat and they die.

If you put fry into a container full of green water, make sure it is aerated so the fry don't suffocate at night, and have something in the water to buffer the pH. During the day when the tub of green water gets light, it will use all the carbon dioxide (CO2) in the water and the pH will go up. At night the green water will use up all the oxygen (O2) and release CO2 and the pH will drop. Aerating the green water culture will prevent this from happening and stop or reduce pH fluctuations.

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When you have a rearing tank with newly hatched fry in, you should reduce the water level to about 4-6 inches. This means any food in the water (green water or infusoria) will be more confined and the fry don't have to swim as far to find the food. Each day when you add green water and infusoria, the water level will naturally rise and the tank will slowly fill up over a few weeks. If the water level gets too high you can carefully remove some of the water from the rearing tank so it is not too deep and so the fry and food stay closer together.

Labyrinth fry, and most other fishes that scatter eggs in plants have small fry that need infusoria or green water for the first 1-2 weeks. After this time they can go onto newly hatched brineshrimp. Newly hatched brineshrimp (commonly called nauplii) are attracted to light and will normally swim up to the surface if there is a light on the aquarium. The fish fry also live at the surface during the first month or so of life because this is where the plankton normally lives. So it is beneficial to have a low wattage light source above the rearing tank when feeding brineshrimp nauplii to young fry.

It is also a good idea to keep the water shallow (about 4-6 inches) when first offering brineshrimp nauplii. Again this puts the fry closer to the nauplii so the fry don't have to swim as far to get food.

In addition to this, you should continue feeding green water and or infusoria while you are offering brineshrimp nauplii. Baby fish grow at different rates and female fish usually have slightly smaller mouths than males. Some of the fry will be smaller than others and the smaller fry and female fry will not always be able to take the brineshrimp nauplii at the same time as the bigger fry or the male fry. By feeding green water/ infusoria and newly hatched brineshrimp together, the smaller fry can continue to get food (green water and infusoria) and the bigger fry will move onto the brineshrimp nauplii.

When fish fry eat newly hatched brineshrimp, the fry's belly will be orange and is very noticeable. When all the fry have fat orange bellies from the nauplii, you can stop feeding green water and infusoria.

After a week on newly hatched brineshrimp, you can increase the water level and start doing water changes. You can also add microworms, rotifers and other small food. Rotifers can be cultured in green water and are available in numerous species that range in size from 5-10 microns to half an inch. The smaller species of rotifer can also be fed to new fry as a first food.

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A simply brineshrimp hatchery can be made out of a 2 litre plastic drink bottle. Cut the top off the bottle and throw the top bit away. Half fill the bottle with sea water or salt water made to the same salinity as sea water. Put an airstone in the container and add 1/4 of a level teaspoon of dry brineshrimp eggs to the salt water. Put the container somewhere warm, I had mine on top of an aquarium. Allow it to aerate for 24-48 hours and when you see orange dots in the water, you remove the airstone, wait 5 minutes for the eggs and nauplii to separate, and then use an eye dropper to suck the nauplii out and feed them to the fish. Put the airstone back in the culture and wait until the fry need feeding again before removing the airstone and sucking out more nauplii.

You should start a new culture every day or every second day and use up all the nauplii within 48 hours because that is when they have the most nutritional value. You can feed surplus nauplii to adult guppies, dwarf gouramis, tetras, barbs, rainbowfish, virtually any fish less than 5 inches long will eat newly hatched brineshrimp.

Try not to put the brown eggs into the rearing tanks because fry can choke on them.

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To remove salt from the aquarium after using it, simply drain and refill the tank 2 times then leave the tank full of water for 24 hours before draining and refilling it again. There won't be any salt left after that.

 

[Vengified]

@Colin_T Nice breeding guide bro! Might as well be a full stickied thread all it's own! I cant imagine how long that took to write, with as long as it took me to read it! But as always, thank you very much! I appreciate all the knowledge you pass along!

It's funny, my wife gives me a hard time, calls me a "Fish Nerd" because I know that gourami are Anabantoid, and Guppy is Poecilia, or that the male reproductive organ is Gonopodium on a guppy, or female is Cloaca. I have explained many times, that I dont know very much at all, especially compared to some of you experienced fishkeepers, and that I have a nearly eidetic memory, and can visually recall things I've read, like they are on an imaginary page in front of me. So I'm not really a fish nerd, more like a wannabe, but maybe someday I'll hold enough knowledge to hold a candle to you guys.

Thank you again! I'll make sure I have a culture going before I try and breed the gouramis this time, and maybe after they do the deed, and see some offspring, maybe then my sociopath male, will not try and murder everything in the tank, and can join the community again. Hopefully....

 

[Colin_T]

@Colin_T Nice breeding guide bro! Might as well be a full stickied thread all it's own! I cant imagine how long that took to write, with as long as it took me to read it!

Like this but it's not a sticky.
http://www.fishforums.net/threads/back-to-basics-when-breeding-fish.448304/

It's a work in progress and gets updated when I remember. It still needs more
You are probably better off printing it out and reading it in bed. It's a good way to get to sleep

 

[Vengified]

ROFL! Reading informational documents regarding animals, does NOT put me to sleep! In school, I actually ENJOYED when we got assigned 5k word essays, especially if it was on wildlife! I love to learn about the creatures around us!

But hey, I'm having some weird stuff going on man! I am not sure if my female gouramis are fighting, or mating lesbians, or my yellow is possibly a boy that doesnt have boy colors?!

I am 100% Positive, I have a wild type male and wild type female. I am 100% sure that the brown/black/yellow one, fighting with the yellow/orange one, in the video below, is female. I am sure of this, because the male has been in his own tank, for the last couple weeks, I put the wild type (brown/silver/yellow/black/color-changing) female, in his tank a week ago. Within 15 minutes of dropping her in his tank, he was blowing bubbles, putting on heavy breeding colors, and she followed suit with colors. I witnessed them do the deed, with the super arched "hug" and then fall, then the male suck up the eggs, and spit them in the nest. The next day, I took the female out, and watched the male tend to the eggs, watched them hatch, watched them swim away, etc. SO, I KNOW she is a female!

So. If she is a female, why does she put on a dull shade of male breeding colors, and dance with the yellow honey gourami?! They didnt do the hug, there is no nest, no eggs, nothing of the sort. Tank parameters are all good. Is it safe to assume it's a territory fighting thing?! It lasted about 20 minutes, then they both went their separate ways, and there is peace in the tank again.

I'm kind of freaking out now, thinking "What the hell is this gender changing gouramis now? I ALREADY have sociopath gouramis, I dont need gender benders too!" So please, help me out here?!

*** Video 1: Two Females Fighting
*** Picture 1: Yellow Female - Picture 2: Wild Female - Picture 3: Male
*** Video 2: Continuous shot showing male vs female (forgive bad camera work)

@Colin_T @seangee @essjay @NickAu or ANYONE tell me if I'm right about them trying to set up a female heirarchy?!

 

[Colin_T]

I assume the first video was taken shortly after you put the normal coloured female back into the tank with the yellow one? This is a territorial dispute with each fish trying to dominate the other and re-establishing the pecking order. Female fish will try to colour up to make themselves look like a male so the other fish say "ok, you're in charge". Her colour was nothing like the male's colour and they settled down after they worked out who wears the pants in the tank.

 

[Vengified]

I assume the first video was taken shortly after you put the normal coloured female back into the tank with the yellow one? This is a territorial dispute with each fish trying to dominate the other and re-establishing the pecking order. Female fish will try to colour up to make themselves look like a male so the other fish say "ok, you're in charge". Her colour was nothing like the male's colour and they settled down after they worked out who wears the pants in the tank.

Actually, the female has been in the community tank for 2 days with the yellow. When I first put her in though, she was a VERY dark brown, and looks like the male had taken a bite at her head. She was all dark, except one slightly lighter spot, about a half inch behind her eye, about the size of a gourami mouth. When I finally took her out of the males tank, he was chasing her ferociously around the tank. Which is kind of funny, since she was chasing the oto around just before he chased her back out of his spot.

She probably spent a good 2 hours in the tank with him after I first noticed his aggression though, so who knows how long he had been psychotic to her...

But in either case, thank you @Colin_T I assumed it was them establishing a tank boss, but wasnt 100% on it. I believe the wild type actually won, which is crazy, as she was a lot smaller than the yellow when she moved in at first, though now they seem about equal. I am guessing the wild one, as the yellow has been hanging down by the gravel more than normal, and the wild has been up top more than normal, so roles have sort of reversed.

 

[Essjay]

People will say that you should keep one male gourami with at least 2 female gouramis, the reasoning being that the male will chase one female constantly but with two, each one gets time off while he chases another.
I kept honey gouramis for over 20 years, and have kept them as m/f pairs and 1m/2f trios. The only problems I've ever had have been with females fighting. Your experience is similar to mine. However, I've never heard of anyone else report females fighting. Just mine and yours.

 

[Vengified]

Yea @essjay my luck with gouramis is not the best. I would put the male with the two females, if he didnt go psycho and try to slaughter everything in the tank. So he is in his own tank, except for an oto and a few RCS. AND PROBABLY some babies! ...
... I did a gravel vac on his tank today, since it had been nearly a week since I saw his eggs, and I hadn't done a single W/C. Nor had I fed ANYTHING small enough for gourami fry! But when I started dumping water, I noticed something that looked like a fry, but wasnt moving, stuck my finger in, and it dashed away! So, I THOROUGHLY and CAREFULLY continued dumping, while holding a cup, and catching all the fry I had inadvertently sucked up. I ended up counting 54 fry!!! So, I stuck them in my 3rd small tank, with some newborn shrimp, and I'll feed them hard boiled egg yolk, according to previous directions, as my infusoria is not done yet I dont think. It has turned sort of pink, but doesnt smell sweet yet.

But I was SUPER SHOCKED to see any fry at ALL! I know they live a few days off yolk sack, but they hatched 5 days ago! Does that mean that 10g had a surplus of infusoria? In either case, I'll do my best to raise them. I can see 10-15 at any given time in that little tank, all different levels of the tank, it's only about 8 inches deep. And I have saran wrap over the top of it to keep humidity, and a small internal filter, that is BARELY trickling and has a sponge in front of it, with plants in front of that. There is almost zero surface agitation. Am I doing it right? Other than messing up in the first place by getting more fish, and getting psycho fish, and then sucking up psycho fish offspring....

 

[Colin_T]

Your gourami tank had a lot of plants in and the fry would have been feeding on the infusoria around and on the plants.

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Make sure your infusoria culture is aerated. I have never had one go pink but it depends on what sort of plant matter you use and what species of bacteria grow first. Different bacteria can produce different colours when they bloom.

The infusoria culture will not smell sweet when it's ready. It doesn't smell bad either tho. When it is first starting they smell pretty unpleasant but when established it's not unpleasant, but it's not cherry or peach wine either

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You need some surface turbulence to prevent a film from developing on the meniscus (water surface) and preventing oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange. You don't want too much water movement or surface turbulence but you need some.

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The fry will usually hang around the plants so try to move that away from the filter so the fry don't accidentally get sucked in. Keep feeding them and monitor ammonia levels and do water changes if necessary. In a week or so you should be able to offer them newly hatched brineshrimp.

 

[Vengified]

Yea, the infusoria smelled HORRENDOUS for a couple days there. My wife made me put it in between the storm window and the screen, so the smell would go outside. It was not aerated first 24 hours or so, but since then has been. I only mentioned pink, cuz that was stated in one of the guides I read, I thought it was weird though.

I'm not sure if I have enough turbulence or not? How do you KNOW for sure? Pretty much the filter output spout, just has water running over the edge, then it follows back underneath the spout, and into the water, it doesnt actually drop into the water, sort of seeps in. The filter is an internal air driven filter, like a sponge filter concept sort of. I have a fine sponge on the intake of it, zip-tied tight to it, so nothing is gonna get sucked in. I can see particles in the water moving some, from the intake and output flow, but there's no bubbles popping at the surface or anything, so I dunno if I killed them off from lack of flow, or if it's ok? But I do know there is not a noticeable film of any kind, and some of the hornwort I put in there, stick out from the surface slightly, and wiggle slightly. And I put lots of hornwort in there, figuring it may help feed them while my culture goes, though I may have done it wrong?

For my infusoria, I put spinach leaves, a couple small pieces of indian almond leaf, and a mini veggie wafer in water that I squeezed out of one of the sponge intake filter covers, and then some more tank water. I've had it in the sun in windowsill, or in a DIY box thing I made, that has a light bulb in it, to keep it in the light, and keep it warm. Which is also the one I use for the brine shrimp. It's just a cardboard box, that I lined with aluminum tape for heat/light reflection, that sits over the bottles of infusoria and brine shrimp. I didnt have any lettuce or hay, but had spinach, so used that instead.

If I cant get infusoria going, I'll keep rotating out hornwort from the other tanks, in hopes of raising a few of them, as I have LOTS of hornwort. More than enough to fill a 20g top to bottom, front to back, with literally no space for anything larger than a guppy fry to swim through, if I took it from the 3 tanks, and 2 buckets I got sitting with it in them. I stopped messing with it, moving it around and such, and it went CRAZY! I picked up some frogbit from a local guy I found on Facebook, and its taking off and almost covered the top of my 20, so I moved some of it. He also gave me the indian almond leaves, a little bunch of Christmas moss, and some of what I think is "salvinia minima" or something like that? Its itty bitty little leaves, and tiny little roots. Might have to take a picture and have it identified later.

Anyways, we shall see if I can raise any at all. If not, I'm sure it wont take much at all to have those two breed again. I did it twice, in less than 48 hours, without even intending to do so, apparently they are frisky AND psychotic?

 

[Colin_T]

For water movement and surface turbulence in the fry tank, you want 1 or 2 bubbles per second. If the water is only dribbling out slowly it is probably a bit slow.

If you have more hornwort just add it to the rearing tank. You don't have to take the other plant out. If you do take the hornwort out, you could take some of the fry out in it.

The infusoria culture should only contain plant matter and not fish food/ algae wafers. Spinach is fine to use. You don't need a light on the infusoria culture and you should use clean tap water for the culture. If you use aquarium water you get a bunch of other things growing in it and not just paramecium. The fry should eat most of the organisms but you could get some nasty parasites in it too.

Infusoria cultures take a few weeks before they are going so you might be better off using the hornwort and boiled egg yolk. Boil an egg and squeeze the yolk thru a handkerchief into a small container of water. Shake the yolk water mixture up and add a bit of the liquid to the fry tank several times a day.

The fry only need infusoria for 2 weeks and then you can start adding brineshrimp nauplii. Monitor the fry when adding brineshrimp and keep feeding infusoria until all the fry have orange bellies.