Is He ; Or Isn't He?

Betta's, Gouramis etc
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Over the last few days I've been noticing the pouch of a (male) vaillanti gourami swelling.

This morning it was particularly pronounced and he was 'chewing' every so often. He hasn't been hiding away ; he joins in with the general melee when food arrives but didn't eat breakfast ; he's being mildly harassed by other males but doesn't seem to be bothered by that.

I've attempted a couple of pics ...

Doing a Robin Redbreast impression :

Image

Profile compared with another male :

Image

[There's a female, bottom-right of second pic]

Time will tell, but I'm vaguely hopeful that something may happen!
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fr499y
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Awesome! Fingers crossed.
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plankton
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Looking promising! :D
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Martinspuddle
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Well, any updates?! :dodgy2:
WARNING - DO NOT BREED, FEED OR PET THE PUDDLE! :dodgy2:
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I will go and look. Just one sec ...

Well, other than that he has a split in his tail fin, nothing has changed. Perhaps 'chewing' a bit more vigorously.

Apparently they may hold for a week or three, but nothing has emerged yet! My main concern (assuming that he is holding) is the B. cocchina that are in the tank. One is often seen lurking within striking distance. I hope I can spot one or two, if they emerge, and remove them to a place of relative safety!
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I've reviewed options re "removal to a place of relative safety"...

The tank with the closest water-parameter-match is Sheba 5 (in fact pretty much bang on). But although it has livestock in it, I think it's too biologically immature to house babies at the moment. Sheba 3 is very close - but I'd have a devil of a job getting anyone out of there if it came to distributing fish elsewhere! It could be done though because everything is easily removable - but the disruption to the tank wouldn't be worth it if there were to be an alternative. All other tanks have potential predators except for the one that's got Scarlet Badis in it - but the water parameters don't match well enough.

So I concluded that it would be best to divide the tank. I discovered that I didn't have enough left of the the perforated plastic sheet that I'd used for a previous project. The best alternative I could come up with was some egg crate wrapped with butterfly netting! It's not great because fry will easily pass through ; but it increases my chances of 'saving' some (if that's what's eventually going to happen). However I've ordered some stock that should increase security - should arrive tomorrow.

Anyway, this is the current state of play :

Image


He wasn't best pleased - in particular because my first attempt ended up with the wrong fish in the divided-off segment ; so I had to start the chasing-and-catching process all over again. This is the colouration they (and standard chocolate gourami) adopt when they're scared sh!tless :

Image


I checked again twenty minutes ago and he'd regained his normal colour (taken with flash) :

Image


And so we wait ...
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Well, in the end the wee blighter somehow found his way back into the main tank ; he must have discharged his cargo overnight then, because the next day he was feeding again. I haven't seen any 'Chocolate drops', so I'm assuming (if it wasn't a false pregnancy, as it were!) that tankmates saw to it that I wouldn't see any. No.1 suspects are the B.coccina. His desperation to re-join his conspecifics was curious and notable.

Since then I've been planning a better stab at a tank divider. The last component to arrive was delivered this morning, so I went ahead and put it all together. I'll post pics of the process in the appropriate board later. I've tested it in a cardboard box - I just happened to have one that was roughly the right width - but haven't yet performed a wet dress rehearsal (to borrow a term from rocketry!). I'm hoping that the slight flexion allowed by the bracing will sit the seal tight enough to the front and back tank walls to counter the device's potential buoyancy. That should make more sense if/when you see the separate 'build' post.

Anyway I think I'll do a wet dress rehearsal in a different 'Sheba' tank (they're all the same length and width) and then try again.
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plankton
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That's a shame, unless the fry are very good at hiding.....
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