What are the correct methods for breeding gouramis?

The gourami belongs to the family Osphronemidae, genus Trichogaster, and is a small tropical ornamental fish. It has low requirements for water quality, is omnivorous, and has a relatively aggressive temperament, so it can be kept together with other mild-tempered tropical fish of similar size. So, do you know the correct methods for breeding gouramis?

1. Correct methods for breeding gouramis

Breeding gouramis is relatively easy. Keep the aquarium water temperature at around 26 degrees. Throughout the entire breeding process, the male fish leads and completes it. Before breeding, the male builds a bubble nest on the water surface by blowing bubbles. Once the bubble nest is built, it begins to chase the female, brings her below the bubble nest, wraps his body around her, and keeps shaking and turning until mating ends, scattering countless eggs into the bubble nest. After spawning is finished, remove the female and let the male guard the eggs.

The male keeps fanning his fins so the eggs absorb more dissolved oxygen. When some parts of the bubble nest are damaged, the male will actively go up and repair the damaged bubble nest. After about 30 hours of incubation, the fry finally appear in the water. At this time, the male should be removed to prevent him from mistakenly taking the fry for eggs and putting them back into the bubble nest.

2. Breeding characteristics of gouramis

The fry reach sexual maturity after 6 months. During breeding, the male shows nuptial coloration, a distinctive deep blue, with the tips of the dorsal and anal fins pointed and elongated; the female's body color is lighter and her abdomen is swollen. The breeding water temperature is 26~28 degrees C, and the water is neutral.

In an aquarium of 60X40X40 (cm) or larger, place several strands of floating aquatic plants; the male blows bubbles to build a nest, then chases the female to spawn; the male spits the fertilized eggs into the bubbles to hatch. The female lays 500~1000 eggs each time. After spawning is finished, remove the female and leave the male to care for the eggs. After 2 days, once the fry hatch, remove the male.

Gouramis are further divided into the yellow gourami, blue gourami, and silver gourami. The yellow gourami likes to eat omnivorous food, so you can prepare some animal-based bait as food, for example, you can put in various live baits such as mosquito larvae, tubifex worms, aquatic earthworms, and water fleas; gouramis also eat artificial bait, and even eat live small fry, and will also consume shrimp and crab roe, but they will not chase small fish they cannot swallow. Still, gouramis like best the food that floats on the water surface.

The yellow gourami especially likes a relatively deep, quiet environment, and particularly likes living in natural waters with slow or still currents. Therefore, the aquarium for keeping yellow gouramis can be made a bit larger. If you place some fake rocks in the aquarium to pile up into a rockery, and also plant some beautiful aquatic plants for the yellow gourami to rest and hide in, it will be even more beneficial to the growth of the yellow gourami.

Breeding gouramis is relatively easy. Keeping the water temperature in the aquarium at around 26 degrees C is more suitable. Gouramis like aged water; keep the water hardness at 5—8 and the PH value at 5.5—8.5. During the breeding process of a pair of gouramis, most of the main work is led and completed by the male. Before breeding, the male builds a bubble nest on the water surface by blowing bubbles, using some aquatic plants and foam together to build the bubble nest. After these bubble nests are built, the male will begin to constantly chase the female, slowly bring her below the bubble nest, then wrap his body around her and keep shaking and even turning until mating ends, finally scattering countless eggs into the bubble nest. After the gouramis finish spawning, we should remove the female and let the male guard the eggs. The male keeps fanning his fins so the eggs absorb more dissolved oxygen. When some parts of the bubble nest are damaged, the male will actively go up and repair the damaged bubble nest. After about 30 hours of incubation, the fry finally appear in the water. At this time, the male should be removed to prevent him from mistakenly taking the fry for eggs and putting them back into the bubble nest.