Honey gourami fry

[Jaesthetic]

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.
 

[Irene]

So cute! The only thing I did to increase humidity was to seal all the edges of my aquarium lid with seran wrap. Opening the lid occasionally to feed them didn't seem to be a problem. Not sure when they develop their labyrinth organ, but one article suggested between 6 to 8 weeks old.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Irene

[Hobbit]

Wow! Congrats on having all these babies make it to one month!! I’ve never had any survive in my tank. You must have a great environment!

I’ve never gotten my honey fry to eat first bites either. They’re picky!

I’m not sure about the labyrinth organ. I just have regular plexiglass lids on my tanks and fry box with some holes for cords and such. I can’t say I’ve noticed a problem with the development of my fry, but I’m not sure how I would know if their labyrinth organ was poorly developed. 

[Daniel]

18 hours ago, Jaesthetic said:

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.

I don't keep lids on my aquariums. I have raised a lot betta and gourami fry over the years, and the standard advice has been to provide high humidity during time period between the first and second month when the labyrinth organ was developing. I have never done that and I don't think my fry have suffered from it. Calling it 'internet wisdom' wouldn't be right because I first heard it in the 1970s, but the advice is proposing a reason to explain fry loss that is more likely to due to water quality and the quality of food the fry get.

Or my maybe my house is just humid. 🙂

[Brandy]

33 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Or my maybe my house is just humid. 🙂

Umm, aren't you in SC? yeah, that would be humid by most accounts!

[Daniel]

2 minutes ago, Brandy said:

Umm, aren't you in SC? yeah, that would be humid by most accounts!

I am in North Carolina. I also have 15 open topped small aquariums and one 3 feet by 8 feet open topped large aquarium that could possibly contribute to the household humidity.🙂