HankyPanky- what next

[maddie]

My little dwarfs are doing the mating ritual and once all the twisting and turning has finished they go to their seperate corners to recover.
I have a lot of plants both floating and secure and he is hiding in it all the time. He is very protective of his area and keeps any on the other fish well away. Is it likely that there will be any fry as a result of this as in the same tank I have some large gouramies, knifefish, silver dollars, clown loaches, catfish, bumble bees
This may sound a lot but it is a 4' x 2'x 18" tank and they all get on really well.
If it does result in fry should I seperate them straight away and feed on liquid brine? or leave them with mum and dad for a while?
Any advice would be really welcomed. Thanks

 

[Crab Paste]

Has he built a bubblenest at all?

Although mine were three spot gourami, I don't think there'd be a huge difference so I'll just tell you what I did, starting out in a community tank.

Day1: Noticed the mating ritual and moved them both to a 5 gallon tank.

Day2: He built his bubblenest and made a great job of it!

Day3: There were now eggs in the individual 'bubbles' (didn't see the actual mating).

Day4: Eggs have now become fry, very very tiny fry.

Day5: Removed the female. Dad is very busy looking after his babies who don't want to stay in their bubbles.

Day:7 Moved Dad back to the community tank before he started thinking of the little ones as food.

Day8: Began feeding a very fine powder feed to the fry. (If it had been now, I'd try liquifry maybe or hatch some BBS).

If I'd left them in the community tank none of them would have survived as they'd be free food!

Probably half the fry died BUT I ended up with around 110-120 adults from this one brood.