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I will do my best I have to go to work right now but i will. The females have a dark spot around the anal fin

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Have you seen them breed? the female will lay on a leaf or in the moss, the male lays on top the female, she curls around the male, then they lay together for a second or so

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Well, the adults do eat a lot of fry I found it difficult to get the fry out of my tank with 15+. I found when I leave a space above of about 10 cm between the moss and the surface(this does take a fair amount of moss) the adults tend to leave the fry alone that stay in that space. Adults tunnel into the moss and don’t tend feed on the surface, when they do they zig zag before surfacing If you can set up a tank for breeding it is much easier. I just took the breeders out of the tank last week, I have all the fish I can handle(130 between 8-20 weeks and at least as many younger). It is kind of neat to have such a large school, it is a fair amount of work, it seems I am constantly doing water changes. I filmed them the other day i will try to post a link for a video.

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I have noticed males apparently protect the area where eggs are laid and even chase all females away they kind of buzz around like a humming bird

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I have chased my tail so many times with meds, sometimes there are bacteria blooms and all sorts of fungi and algae that more frequent or larger water changes control and prevent. I now do 20-40% every 4-5 days, since I got my python syphon. Do you treat and or age your water?

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I am afraid I can’t be much help either maybe with a picture but I know how hard it is to get pictures, the paleness definitely indicates stress, the females if they don’t release the eggs will get very large bellies. Most problems can be linked to water issues I would double your water changes for a couple of weeks and see if there is any improvements if for no other reason to eliminate a water issue. If you have more than 40 inches of fish you may want to thin the herd. Please keep us updated

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@Tom2006 wrote:

Its a nightmare to get good quality moss in decent quantities!!!

It is really hard to find moss these fish love it!!I got my hands on some moss which is larger than typical java moss called singapore moss, I mixed it in the tank with regular moss.
It is a nightmare to catch them in that tank, pretty much have to take everything out. I am going to leave them for now, I am hoping to increase numbers soon, I have some great young males now for stock, the females seem to take longer to mature. The rest of the first hatch approximately 40 are going to the fish store next week, my living room won’t be same for a while.

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I had planned to remove the parents but backed out because the male I am using is about 3 years old so I didn’t want to stress him, I did set up the aquarium to help keep the adults from the fry as much as i could I angled flat pieces of wood to create a cave

I filled the sides with moss (It is quite dense)leaving about 10 cm above the moss and used floating plants

the adults make tunnels in the moss the fry stay above or in the moss and often stick to the floating plants

I am still looking for more moss for the right side

It is quite time consuming to collect the fry this way and if I worked full time it probably wouldn’t work well.

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P.s ball is that a micro rasbora You use for your avatar?

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I agree with ball, from the literature I read a lot are found in small isolated pools which is why they end up being over collected in local areas, so they must have inbreeding naturally.

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What I have read they should be fine they have the same temperament they are even from myanmar. Except when they are territorial when breeding as long as breeding behavior is not triggered in the a thick-lipped gourami they should be fine. But I agree with Tom I wouldn’t add too many at once

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I thought I lost my apex male several times because they can hide so well. They are very skittish, a guy bought some from me and put them in an unplanted tank in a high traffic area and all died except 1

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They are $8 here I was selling 5 for $20 they I sold 35 of them,I am selling the rest to the pet store for $3 each

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It sounds like you are doing things right, I have some that do that as well they are the ones that have a tougher time. I am not sure if it helped but I used a plant floating at the surface which gave them shelter and a place to pick food off of I used brazilian pennywort it does very well floating and soaks up nitrates.It grows like crazy I end throwing some away every 2 weeks, just to keep higher light levels in the tank

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I find it so hard to count them I am guessing 70-80, the best method I found is to take a picture then count them in the picture. I have 50 + or – in one tank 20 in another and approx 10 of really small fry. Mine seem to have gotten into a cycle of only one female carrying eggs every week at first they all bred every week, now 3-6 fry a week. This makes it harder to collect them they get eaten easier this way. If I had to guess the females have eggs when they mature I added the females just as they reached maturity so they all had eggs. Once most of these fry are sold I am planning to separate the females then reintroduce them to see if I can get another large hatch. Do your youngsters sort of stay near the surface? What do you feed them?

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