[HanshaSuro]

Well, it must be that time of the year... The birds are singing... the sun is shining... and the fish are frisky. That's right, you can almost hear the mood music from inside the tank.

Anyway. To cut to the chase, my fish are all very busy courting each other and today I had the opportunity to see my brand new sparkling gouramis spawning. There's a couple movies below, as well as some pictures. The movies aren't the greatest quality as they were shot with my digicam.

At any rate, enjoy!

Movie 1 5.5mb (right click & Save As...)

Movie 2 5.4mb (right click & Save As...)

 

[HanshaSuro]

That's great, HanshaSuro! Are you doing anything special to make your sparkling gouramis spawn? Extra feeding with high quality foods, perhaps?

Carlos

Carlos,

While I wish I could say that I know exactly what is going on, I'm afraid I will have to chalk it up to luck and a nice home. They've taken a liking to a dark spot under a piece of driftwood in my planted 20 gallon. They're getting ordinary flake and freeze dried foods and actively defending their area against the other community residents (Colisa labiosa and Rasbora heteromorpha). I'll update if I see any fry, but I'm not really prepared to care for them with any infusoria or live foods, so I don't suspect they'll make it

 

[HanshaSuro]

They're actually not that hard to sex if you know the trick. Their body shape and color doesn't give away too much, but I learned that the best way to sex them is by examining their internal organs. Whaaat, you say?

No, I don't mean to disect them. However, if you can view them in front of a bright light, say, slightly low to high in front of your tank's lights, you can actually see through their bodies. In females, the internal organs will visibly extend further down the length of the body than the males, whose stop being visible about 1/3 of the way past the head. I wish I could show you the comparison in a picture, but alas, I'm not that good.

HTH,
-Mike

 

[HanshaSuro]

How many did you pick up? It'll be interesting to hear how yours relate in a larger group. No fry have hatched from any attempt by my two, but then again they haven't stopped trying

 

[HanshaSuro]

Sounds good. If I could do some reshuffling of my tanks I'd put my sparklers with my pygmy cories as well. Kinda minature beauty meets miniature cuteness.

Have you heard the gouramis "croak" yet?