I keep destroying my gourami nests

[On_a_dishy]

I have 2 beautiful dwarf gouramis and the male has made goodness knows how many nests over the past few weeks (see photo).
His mate does all the right things, and he loves his nests more than anything. He breaks apart my marimo balls and splurts the algae into them, he tugs leaves to them, and he noses away interested parties.
My problem is that he is in a community tank (145 litre, well planted, 6 corys, 1 pleco, 1 female betta, 3 neons, 2 balloon mollies) and I like to do a 25-50% water change and glass clean weekly. Invariably, this process destroys his nest. The substrate is gravel (and that expensive soil stuff) and I have bulbs and plants securely established, so there is always movement when I do the change.
I have just bred betta (time consuming!) and don't want to move the gouramis out to consciously breed them, but I do feel bad knowing that he wants to mate so badly.
Any ideas?

 

[Colin_T]

Breed them.

If you have a healthy pair of dwarf gouramis that are free of the Iridovirus, you should be breeding them so you can supply healthy fish to the shops.

Gourami fry can be kept together unlike Betta splendens fry that fight. So you put them in a tank and let them breed, then remove the female and let dad take care of the eggs and fry. After he gets sick of them you move him out and rear the fry up.

 

[nik_n]

I had a similar issue a few months back. My blue gouramis were breeding and constantly building bubble nests. What I did is wait until there were eggs in the nest and then I took the nest and eggs out, then do a water change and soon I would get a new nest. I suggest you do the same, and if you want them to stop building nests for some time add an air stone. However don't put it on the place where the bubbles nest is usually built, I did that and I hope he forgives me and still builds the nest. I moved the air stone into a different corner, so it should be fine.

You could always re home the pair of gouramis into a 50l tank, so you can perform easy eater changes on your main tank and smaller more careful on the gourami breeding tank.