Jaesthetic

I don't have anything helpful unfortunately, but I had the exact same thing happen to me also a week ago. I bought 8 CPDs and 2 pygmy cories from my LFS. Drip acclimated to a quarantine tank that fit their requirements and had good water parameters. 3 died that night, 2 more the next day, and over the second night 2 more died. I have 1 CPD left and it seems to be doing great along with the 2 pygmy cories, but now I'm scared of getting more cause I don't want to just kill them all again. 😪

Does anyone know what age HG fry develop their labyrinth organs? I think I saw one fry go to the surface today and I'm not sure when/if I need to do anything special to keep the humidity up since I frequently open the lid to feed them throughout the day. In other news, I thought I'd share an update and some pictures of my honey gourami fry to those who gave helpful advice on my thread a bit back! The 1-2 days before I went to my SO's parent's house for the weekend a bit over a week ago to my surprise I saw a tiny little honey gourami hiding in the corner of the tank. I was so excited because I hadn't seen any fry in the tank a couple of weeks after the two females thoroughly hunted and ate what I presumed were all the loose fry I hadn't bothered to save (due to their incessant spawning lol). Since I came back on MLK day I have seen babies becoming bolder and bolder. At first I thought maybe 2-3 had survived. W R O N G. There have to be at least 10-15 (??) little guys freely swimming around in the parent tank. I am scared that the mothers will go after them because they are still so small, but somehow they keep getting bolder still and growing bigger very slowly. I have not seen any of the adults eat or even really chase the babies since they started venturing out though to be fair the babies mostly have stayed low and near plants and they are very fast. I honestly think they may be doing even better than the ones I have in my fry box somehow, maybe because there is better hunting out among the dead plants/driftwood in addition to my feedings whereas the ones in the box only get to eat what I feed them and do not really have the opportunity to hunt. The oldest fry were born 12/27 so they are almost exactly 1 month old and the others hatched in the weeks after. Happily, my adults have not spawned in a few weeks which has been a tremendous relief and their bickering has somewhat decreased. The fry are growing unbearably slow. I was feeding the fry only insuforia until about a week ago when I hatched my first batch of baby brine shrimp. I froze the extra and have been defrosting 1 ice cube of water with maybe 1/16 tsp of baby brines approximately every day in addition to the insuforia and at least the larger free fry have been eating that. I've also been trying to feed Aquarium Co-op easy fry food and hikari first bites intermittently since the start, but none of the babies have seemed interested. The adults have been delighted to gorge themselves on food meant for the fry lol. I attached some pictures of the free fry from today as well as some pictures from when they were freshly hatched and days/weeks old, and my tank set up shown from about 2 weeks ago.

That makes sense and I'm not opposed to it, but is it okay to stop the other two medications even after I started? I have dosed 2 days of the maracyn and ich-x so far and 1 dose of the paracleanse yesterday (tomorrow was supposed to be the second). Also, since I don't see the fungal infection on the others that haven't died yet is it safe to assume that is what is bothering them and not something else/internal?

I decided to buy 8 pygmy cories on Sunday from my LFS and upon acclimating and releasing them into my QT tank that night, noticed that 2 were very lethargic. When I put them in the tank I added stability, stress guard, and prime. Yesterday morning I saw that one had fuzzy white fungus (?) growing off of it. I immediately started treating the tank with maracyn, ich-x, and paracleanse (trio recommended by aq co-cop) following the instructions with the hope of saving the fish, if not the visibly sick one, then the others. I also put stability and stress guard in after adding the medications. Today the fish with the growth died, another was belly up (though I can't find it now) floating, and the rest are looking really lethargic and sitting in the fake plants or bottom of the tank instead of swimming around like they were the first night. I did a 1/3 tank water change (added prime), then added the second dose of ich-x and maracyn followed by stressguard. This evening I put in another dose of stability. Tonight I noticed that the water looks a little cloudy to me now, but upon testing the water, nitrates were <5, nitrites 0, ammonia 0. Temp is 75 degrees and I have a sponge filter and heater in there. I haven't seen the fungus growing on any of the other cories and were hoping they would be okay, but they aren't looking good despite my efforts. I have the 2 mystery snails I bought on Sunday in there as well and they seem to be doing okay although it's kind of hard to tell. Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm feeling super bummed because my first set of fish that I got in the beginning of Dec were 3 honey gouramis and none got sick or had any problems adjusting to my aquarium. I got these from the same store and thought I did everything right... tried to minimize stress using drip acclimation, used stress guard/stability/prime, and started treatment before the others started showing signs but they seem to be getting sicker. The only upside is that after a long internal debate I decided to set up and put them in a QT tank upon bringing them home instead of added them directly to my tank as they looked super happy and healthy at the store and I had no problems with the HGs I got from there, but I wonder if the stress of the quarantine tank is doing more harm than good. 😔

The eggs stick to whatever he seems to stick them to (glass, air tubing, plants, etc.). I am not sure how to increase the flow any higher than it already is with the HOB seachem tidal 55 and sponge filter with air stone already in there in opposite corners of the tank. It is only a 20 gallon so there isn't a lot of space as is especially with my plants. 😔 I thought things were getting a little better, but I was wrong lol. They're still bickering and they laid more eggs 1-2 days ago that look to be about ready to hatch. This time he just made a small bubble nest which I removed and he stuck the eggs to the airline tubing and the glass wall. I gotta hand it to them though, they really are very determined to procreate no matter what. I wish you could help chaperone as well! 😆 The flow does not appear to have helped, though my tank water is slightly clearer lol! They are lovely to watch when they aren't stressing me out with their squabbling. The dominant female seems to at least have the sense to generally leave the nest alone and stay away, but the bullied female insists on trying to always get closer and hunt for eggs/babies even after getting harassed by the others and having a bite chomped out of her tail fin. Thankfully I've not been able to observe any other injuries since, but man is she persistent. She likes to hide behind things near the fry box and the male's nest and snag a fry or eggs any chance she gets. I added 3 amanos to the tank on Sunday night and have never seen them since. I have no other fish besides the females in there and I've seen the zeal with which they hunt and eat their young, even the free-swimming fry which can go really fast.

Which should I add to my 20 gal tank next? Temp: 75 degrees, pH: 7.2, a HOB filter and a sponge filter TLDR: I currently have 3 HG and a bunch of 1-2 week old HG fry in a box. Tomorrow I will be getting: 2 mystery snails, 7 neocardinia shrimp, and 3 amano shrimp (granted the LFS has them). Which of the fish that I want to eventually add should I get next: - CPDs (I definitely want eventually) [8+] - Pygmy corys [6+] OR otocinclus catfish [6+] - Chili rasbora [8], Endlers LB [5], OR Rummynose tetras [8] Long version: Currently I have 3 honey gourami and a bunch of tiny honey gourami fry in the fry box that I will move to a different tank if/when they survive to a little older. Tomorrow I am going to my LFS and getting 1-2 mystery snails, 7 neocardinia, and possibly a few amano. I also want to get more fish. In the end for fish I want my HG, the CPDs, and either pygmy corys or otocinclus, but I also want either some chili rasboras, endlers, or rummynose tetras. I did the calculations on aqadvisor.com and won't be using any combinations of the above numbers that would stock my tank above 85% (mostly around 80%) so stocking level shouldn't be a problem it's more so a concern of what order to add the fish. My entire goal with this tank is centered around a natural, wild theme with celestial pearl danios because they look like tiny trout. I got and planted the plants about a week or two ago, but they have not yet grown out so the tank is still kinda sparse if I were to take out the two large fake plants (I included what it looked like before the plants and fry box). I will be quarantining any of the new fish for a couple of weeks in a 10 gallon so my plants should have time to fill out in the meantime I think? I've included a picture of my tank just after adding the gouramis and a more recent one after being planted + the fry box.

Thank you both for your answers! Today I put in a sponge filter with an airstone into the opposite corner from my HOB filter to creat more flow and surface agitation which is seems to be doing wonderfully. I also went back in and carefully removed all bubbles again. I moved the floating plants to the middle of the tank so they would be between two sources of flow/agitation and the fake plants I kept as is to give whatever fry are left their small chance at survival, plus the male does not seem very interested in using them for a nest. Dumped half the new baby fry into the fry box, the other into the fake plants to fend for themselves as there have to be hundreds now and, while I doubt many will survive, I don't want to risk it lol. To my dismay, literally as I type this, the male and the dominant female are spawning yet again for what seems like the 100th time in two weeks. He is just putting the eggs into the corner and along the side of the tank. That being said, my efforts to increase flow, eliminate the bubble nest, and move things around seem for naught in terms to decreasing or eliminating spawning. I am open to additional input or advice! Needless to say, I will not be saving anymore eggs or fry. 😩

Thank you for your reply, I always like hearing other people's experiences! For the month I had them before the spawning madness I absolutely loved them, they were so cute and mostly seemed to get along fine just doing their thing looking for food and exploring. I had read that they can be shy, but in my experience with them they have been anything but! They always came up to the glass for food and swam around the whole tank all day touching things and each other with their feelers and they were quite social! Then, like yours, they paired off with the male and the dominant female the first round with both sort of picking on the other female, and now either one or both of the females spawned again in the last few days, and the male still mainly goes after the less dominant female despite having spawned with her even when she is on the other side of the tank just minding her business. I thought that with 2 females and 1 male there would be less of a risk for any aggression and territorial behavior especially because everything I read had said they were very gentle, peaceful fish, especially females. I wonder now if it would have been better to get 3 females and 1 male initially to diffuse the competition between females. I also did not expect them to breed so prolifically especially without effort into making their habitat suitable (e.g. raising the temp. frequent high protein meals, decreasing the water level, etc) or this soon into being added to the tank. The first batch of fry I had saved I put into a mesh fry box inside the aquarium and have been feeding them infusoria for the last week and bought brine shrimp eggs/hatchery, Hikari first bites, the whole shebang from Aquarium Coop online for when they are bigger if they make it. I wouldn't mind the spawning so much if they weren't becoming so aggressive and hurting/stressing each other because of it, even if it is a bit sad to watch them gobbling up their babies (I'm not even trying to save these newer batches of eggs/fry). As it is though, I want to prevent or at least greatly decrease their spawning rate for their own safety. Unfortunately, though the 20 long gives them plenty of space theoretically, because of the holidays my plant shipment came a month later than my fish. I just planted them and they will probably take a while to grow and really fill out the tank with enough vegetation to make it safer for them to hide besides the two leafy fake plants, wood, and rocks. Even so, they were happy and fine with just those before I added the real plants until the spawning. I would prefer not to rehome of course and I worry that if I did rehome the less dominant female then the male might just go after the more dominant one instead, if I got rid of the male the dominant female would still be there, or if I got rid of the dominant female the male might still go after the other. 😪 Essentially, I was hoping if anyone has insight into whether addition an additional female or perhaps other fish to the tank might disrupt this behavior and diffuse the fish from targeting one or being so aggressive with each other.

The first is the less dominant female that gets chased the most, the second is my male, and the third is the more dominant female.

Hello, I added 3 honey gourami to my first tank almost exactly 1 month ago with 2 females and 1 male. From the beginning I noticed that 1 female was more dominant and would chase and sometimes nip at the other female and male for a bit, but this was primarily during feeding and the other fish did not seem stressed or bothered by the small amount of chasing because she would leave them alone after a few seconds. Then on Christmas the dominant female and male spawned and laid eggs into a tiny bubblenest. I scooped the eggs into a small mesh fry box and they hatched on the 27th 36 hours later. The gouramis seemed to go back to normal after I removed the eggs/nest. Then I noticed 3 days ago that overnight the male had made a massive bubble nest over the middle half of the tank and was fiercely chasing and nipping at both the females, but I did not see any spawning happening. Nevertheless, the next day I saw the females furiously gobbling fry and the male attacking them. Yesterday I removed the bubble nest, which I thought was empty because I had seen the now free swimming fry being eaten the day before, into a small tubberware to try to eliminate the male's guarding behavior. I moved around some of the scape to try to break up the tank more and I moved all floating plants into one end of the tank for whatever remaining fry may have survived. This afternoon I found that the bubblenest and eggs I had thought were empty in the tupperware have developed into fry balls and the male rebuilt the bubblenest and more new baby fry balls in addition to newly hatched fry in his corner despite the females eating them. The male goes out of his way to chases the females (but the less dominant one especially) all around the tank and nips at them. The dominant female also chases and nips at the other female. Today I noticed that her tail has bites in it for the first time. I reduced temperatures again and yesterday and today I fed them less. I have not even bothered trying to save the endless supply of newly hatching fry. I do not know why they have decided my tank is the place to spawn infinite babies, but it is a warzone and it's driving me mad. I purposely researched and got honey gouramis because they were supposedly peaceful, gentle interesting little fish, but I am so stressed at how much they are constantly fighting. Before there were any eggs and fry it was not nearly so bad so I assume that it was that that is making them so so aggressive, but I do not know how to make them stop their apparent continuous and constant breeding even with the lowered temp from 80 to 75 and decreased food frequency. I have been putting stress guard in daily to try to help the poor female that's both constantly getting chased and nipped. Has anyone had this problem? How do I stop the breeding? Are honey gouramis always such prolific breeders (it seriously has been like 3-4 batches of hatching fry since the first batch on Christmas)? How do I stop the fighting? Would adding a third female gourami or other community fish help? I eventually want to get CPDs, otos, and pygmy cory cats as well as snails and shrimp, but my tank is so new that I wanted to get my gouramis and plants established first before starting to add others, plus even if I get others quarantining them will take another 1-2 months before I could add them to the tank anyways, right? I did not anticipate the fish would breed so quickly as I only got them just under a month ago and this is my first time having an aquarium since I was a kid, nor did I realize the extent and duration of this aggressive behavior and the at first exciting, soon dreadful infinite baby-making. I only have 1 tank for the 3 fish, it is a 20 long with wood and rock hardscape, half gravel/half sand, newly planted plants, 2 large fake plants and 2 fake floating grass so I can't place the fish into a separate tank.