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Honey Gourami Fry - An Unexpected Journey


KatGoneFishing
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Woke up this morning to one of my male honey gourami being very aggressive towards the other two. Double-checked his bubble nest and sure enough, tiny black specks with tails! Considering I've only had this tank set up for about three and a half months and the gourami have only been in there for two, this is amazing.

I'd been seeing courting and breeding behavior the last few days, with my one female showing much more interest in the males' displays than before, so the babies aren't entirely a surprise. But she'd seemed to prefer the other male when I was watching and I hadn't seen either male manage to seal the deal, so to find babies that have already hatched is definitely a surprise.

So, I guess I have babies and now I'm going to have to try and find vinegar eels or something quickly because I definitely was not prepared for this, ahaha. But I'm going to do my best and we'll see how it goes! I'll try to update this thread as it goes because I'm sure my friends will get tired of me going into raptures over baby fish over the next few months.

 

Meet the tank:

A 20 high that is currently home to three honey gourami (1 female, two male, bought as unsexed juveniles), approximately a million ramshorn snails, half a million bladder snails, and, as of yesterday, 11 blue cherry shrimp that promptly disappeared into the aether after being added yesterday. I also have six albino cories in quarantine that will eventually join this tank to finish it off.

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Meet the parents:

These are the parents. The last pic is from last month, when he was flirting his little tail fin off and she was completely uninterested. I've seen him try to court the female time and time again, with very little interest from her, and even more recently, she always seemed to lose interest when he tried to tempt her closer to his bubble nest. So I'm honestly a bit surprised that this male is the one that won the race to reproduce first.

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Meet the competition:

This is the second male in the tank, he was a bit younger and didn't show his colors for a couple weeks after the other male did. He started out the smallest of the three, though he's about the same size as the others now. Thankfully, their dorsal fins have a different coloration pattern, so I can tell them apart. He's the one I've seen have the most success the last few days, keeping the female's attention and almost getting a wrap. Maybe she finds it sexy that the yellow on his dorsal goes all the way to the point, though clearly not sexy enough to let him score

He was rather aggressive towards the other two at first, especially around food, and I have been considering getting him his own 10gal. Not as sure now, but we'll see how it goes.

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And now, of course, meet the new arrivals:

The babies! The dad was being very aggressive this morning when I went to feed the tank and he's been the better of the two males at creating bubble nests, so I did a quick check. And sure enough! There are so many wriggling black dots! They are like absolutely miniature tadpoles at this stage.

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He's been very good at guarding the nest, chasing the other two gourami to the far side of the tank if they get even a micron too close and even pecking at snails that get close enough. He's also not keen on my phone being so close to the glass. Sorry, buddy.

I did a water change yesterday, so I'm very glad that the eggs survived, since it was less than 24 hours between water change and noticing the wrigglers, with a decent chance they'd been laid before the water change. But now I am giving the tank a wide berth to avoid shaking the nest and trying to figure out how to get absolutely tiny fry food for the next few days. I'm thinking vinegar eels and I'll definitely have to get a culture going for any future babies. And maybe some live daphnia? I'll figure it out.

 

But aaaa babies!!! 😻

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On 9/11/2022 at 6:11 PM, Guppysnail said:

You have a lovely tank. Congratulations on your fry. In a pinch sera micron has served me well for new hatched CPD tiny tiny fry when I had no live micro foods. 

Thank you! I'll have to check for the sera micron, though I'll probably see if someone local can save me with a vinegar eel starter culture or something first. I actually have repashy on hand, I wonder if the dry powder would also work.

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Thank you! If I have even one survive, I'll consider it a success considering I have never had any sort of fry before. As for the pictures, I've had to get sneaky with the camera, because the female is oddly skittish as soon as my phone comes out and none of them like to pose for a good angle, lol!

I've reached out to the local facebook group for vinegar eels or similarly tiny live foods, so hopefully that pans out. But I think I will try the repashy powder, as well, see how that goes. The babies are just so tiny right now, it's hard to imagine that even the powder would be small enough for them.

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I will definitely be posting pictures of the babies as they grow! I'm a first time grandma, after all, I'm pretty sure it's a legal obligation to take and share many pictures of the grandfry! 😂

Food update: haven't gotten a response from the locals on finding a vinegar eel culture and the LFS doesn't sell live cultures, either. I have set up a bottle to grow my own from scratch, but it won't be ready for this batch of fry. I did pick up some Hikari first bites, so we'll see how well that works before I try the repashy powder.

And might be time to bite the bullet on getting the baby brine hatchery...

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First pictures of free swimming fry! They are just so very tiny! When I stopped by the LFS yesterday, they seemed doubtful that honey gourami fry needed foods smaller than baby brine shrimp, but I wouldn't even try feeding the frozen daphnia I have, they look small enough that the daphnia might eat them! Most of the babies are still up in the bubble nest, but there's a fair few that are free swimming. They should all become free swimming over the next 12-24 hours.

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Being so smol must be exhausting. Good thing there are plants to rest on.

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Mom and the other male have been banished to the far side of the tank, which is sometimes not far enough for dad. Dad is also not very keen on my being so close to the babies. Yesterday, he actually rushed me when I was at the front of the tank. Very defensive!

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Thank you! I'm absolutely going to be posting photos as we go! In fact, here's a few I was coming here to post:

 

The babies are free swimming, now, and getting adventurous. I've spotted fry a good eight or ten inches away from the nest, just hanging out in open water. Dad does not approve, though. He'll go scoop up a few of his kids, then spit them out in the nest area.

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They do seem to be getting a little bit bigger. I picked up the Hikari first bites and have been dusting some in several times a day yesterday and today, but I have no idea if the babies are eating it or not. Honestly, looking at the size of them and how big their parents' mouths are, proportionally speaking, it almost seems impossible that they could. I definitely want vinegar eels or infusoria or something next time.

Starting to wonder if I should just pull the adults out of the tank for a couple of weeks while the fry grow big enough to avoid getting eaten. Also to give the other two adults a break from being confined to the bottom corner of the tank. So much more preparation is going to be in place for the next time this happens, hoo boy. Nursery tank, for sure. The only complication with pulling the adults out is that I don't have an easy place to put them. I probably could go get another 10gal, pull the sponge out of my current 10gal and throw some floaters in and just watch parameters like a hawk for a couple weeks. Either that or I play musical fish and put the honeys in my current 10gal and put my betta in a tank with the sponge and floaters. Hrrrrm.

I suppose it is also not the end of the world if I don't get maximum survival out of this spawn, lol.

Anyway, so far so good. Dad still doesn't like the camera being so close to the kids and I'm wondering just how long he'll defend the nest.

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The fry are now a week old!

I've definitely lost a number of them, given there were probably a few hundred eggs, but I can still see at least a couple dozen when I glance in, so that's decent odds at having a few make it. They are basically tails with eyes right now, tiny little transparent things.

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Okay, that second pic makes them look a bit freaky, but that's a head-on view.

I've been feeding the Hikari first bites several times a day and praying that they're able to eat it, so either that's working or there's enough micro-organisms in the water to keep them going, since they're still alive. They've at least doubled in size, though that's not saying a whole lot when you go from about 1.5mm to about 3mm. Referencing Irene's video on breeding honey gourami, they should start looking more substantial by the end of week two and week three is about when they're looking like itty bitty gourami.

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Duckweed for scale, lmao.

Dad is still pretty aggressive, mom and the other male are pretty well confined to the bottom corner, and I'm kind of hoping that doesn't last much longer. I miss seeing all three of them swimming about. Hopefully, having a nursery tank for future spawns will resolve that issue.

In other news, apparently my white cloud mountain minnows spawned behind my back, so there's an itty bitty fry in that tank, too! I only saw the one, but considering I have not been making it very easy for them, I'm pretty impressed! This pic is pretty bad because the fry was hanging out at the very back of the tank and I had to utilize the 10x zoom, but it was definitely fry-shaped! More solid looking than the gourami fry, so far, with more color, kind of a metallic sheen to the body, which makes sense given the parents.

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And the adults, for reference. Just regular white clouds, but I think they're just so gorgeous.

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So many exciting things for someone pretty new to the hobby!

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Apparently! I'm definitely not complaining that they like their homes well enough to breed! 😂

Also, apparently the minnow fry was very new, because today I have managed to count at least six individual fry, so I suspect they had just started to hatch. At least three of them are free swimming already, hanging out in the middle of the tank with the adults. There is no parental care with the minnows, but the adults seem to recognize the fry as Not Food, at least. I did manage to get a picture of two of them when they were hanging out on the front glass.

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Very small, but about twice the size of the gourami fry despite being about a week younger, so they're much easier to see.

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On 9/12/2022 at 2:04 AM, KatGoneFishing said:

Woke up this morning to one of my male honey gourami being very aggressive towards the other two. Double-checked his bubble nest and sure enough, tiny black specks with tails! Considering I've only had this tank set up for about three and a half months and the gourami have only been in there for two, this is amazing.

I'd been seeing courting and breeding behavior the last few days, with my one female showing much more interest in the males' displays than before, so the babies aren't entirely a surprise. But she'd seemed to prefer the other male when I was watching and I hadn't seen either male manage to seal the deal, so to find babies that have already hatched is definitely a surprise.

So, I guess I have babies and now I'm going to have to try and find vinegar eels or something quickly because I definitely was not prepared for this, ahaha. But I'm going to do my best and we'll see how it goes! 

I know exactly how you must be feeling right now, the same thing happened to me, one Sunday night when I randomly noticed eggs in the bubble nest of my blue gouramis, in my community tank. I took them out and set up a separate tank for them, and feed them boiled egg yolk for the first few days then I switched to microwroms and finally baby brine shrimp. The fry isn't very difficult to raise, as long as you frequently feed them food that they can eat and change the water regularly 

If you are planning on growing them up, be prepared to keep them for a while, gouramis take a long time to grow. That was the case with my blue gouramis, it took me 9 months to get them to the store. I'm not sure if it's the same case with honey gouramis, maybe they grow a bit faster since they are smaller.  

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Aww congratulations!! 😍 Honey fry are the cutest!! In my experience, my fry wouldn’t eat anything that didn’t move. I had to wean them off live foods when they were 8 weeks old or so. Maybe I just spoiled them 😅 but it’s what worked for me! I had to start with infusoria, move to vinegar eels, and then to baby brine shrimp.

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On 9/21/2022 at 11:23 AM, Hally M. said:

So precious their so cute!!

On 9/21/2022 at 11:42 AM, Jess said:

Awww this is such a fun thread!  Thanks for sharing so many pictures and even a video!  So cute.

I think they're absolutely adorable, they're so fun to watch!

 

On 9/21/2022 at 12:09 PM, Nik_n said:

If you are planning on growing them up, be prepared to keep them for a while, gouramis take a long time to grow. That was the case with my blue gouramis, it took me 9 months to get them to the store. I'm not sure if it's the same case with honey gouramis, maybe they grow a bit faster since they are smaller.  

I think I remember seeing 6 months for honey gourami to reach breeding age, but I'm not too worried about the timeline, honestly. They'll definitely be getting a grow out tank once they're big enough for me to actually remove from the main tank. It'll be a fun process either way!

On 9/21/2022 at 7:59 PM, Hobbit said:

Aww congratulations!! 😍 Honey fry are the cutest!! In my experience, my fry wouldn’t eat anything that didn’t move. I had to wean them off live foods when they were 8 weeks old or so. Maybe I just spoiled them 😅 but it’s what worked for me! I had to start with infusoria, move to vinegar eels, and then to baby brine shrimp.

Thanks! I honestly have zero idea whether they're actually eating the first bites or if I just happen to have enough micro organisms for them at the moment. They're too small to see mouths lol. I wasn't able to find a local source of vinegar eels or anything, so I'm thinking I'll have to order some to bridge the gap between now and the baby brine shrimp. I don't want to rely on the dubious providence of my tank for quite that long. I do hope I can get them on prepared foods fairly easily, though, I have so many nano pellets to get through lmao.

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Slightly belated two week update!

I was away this last weekend for about 48 hours, which I'm sure will have some sort of impact on the fry, but hopefully the tank's got enough tiny things for them to eat.

Dad is much less aggressive as of the last day or so, no longer chasing the other two down into the bottom corners every time he sees them. I'm really happy about this, since I was worrying that the other two weren't getting enough food. We're just back to regular food aggression, now, which is much more manageable.

This wouldn't have happened even two days ago:

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The fry themselves are developing further. They're not much longer yet, but their bodies are starting to grow. I'm definitely not seeing as many of them, but I'm not sure if that's an accurate reflection of the general population or if they've just gotten better at hiding in the floating plant roots. I've kind of let the plants go wild over the last two weeks, not wanting to change things too much with the fry so small, so there's plenty of hiding places (see above, lol).

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It's so exciting to see changes as time passes. I'm going to start working out how to get baby brine shrimp hatching over this next week, as I think they might be big enough for it at the 3 or 4 week point. I do have frozen daphnia on hand, if needed, but I can't remember if it's bigger/smaller/about the same as BBS. I'll look it up after I post this, lol. I never did find a local source for vinegar eels or the like, so these guys will just get raised on first bites until they're big enough for the BBS.

I do have a question, if any of you might have an answer. I have six albino cory cats that have been in quarantine for almost a month and a half that were intended to go into this tank. I was going to hold off on putting them in until the fry were bigger and less likely to be snacks, but are cories, especially the smaller cories, actually a concern with fry? Or would it be fine to move them over sooner than in a month or so? I definitely don't have a new fish acquisition happening tomorrow that I'd like to use the quarantine tank for, nope. 😅

 

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