Chocolate Gourami

[Christine]

Has anyone on the forum spawned chocolate gouramis? I moved a trio (not really even sure if its a trio) and also added some new plants with them at the same time. Here we are about 2 weeks later and I have maybe 50 or so fry in their tub all clinging to the side walls about an inch below the surface.. They are bigger than betta splendens fry. Is it possible these are actually gourami fry or more likely a hitchhiker? For some reason I expected gourami fry would be smaller or similar in size to splendens? Wishful thinking that its gourami's I know... Ive never had hitchhiker fish eggs before tho, so I guess either way is pretty cool.

[Zoe]

Was the female eating for the past few weeks? They won't eat for two weeks while they're holding eggs... That could be an indication as to what these fry are.

[Christine]

Honestly I dont know I have them outside in a dark tub, with almond leaf water and lots of moss. I cant even see to the bottom of the tub. I do know there were a lot of mosquito larva that vanished in short order.. but that couldve been any/all of them.

[Zoe]

Any bubble nest action?

[Christine]

Nope... you know what tho, I just went and siphoned some out and got out a magnifying glass. They look like tiny little tadpoles to me *grumble*. Would those be likely to come in on plants?

[Zoe]

I don't know much about frogs... where did you get the plants from? If you got them from the wild somewhere, I'd say it's quite possible that they came in the plants.
I don't think they're Choc Gourami fry, because of the time it takes before the fry are visible.
First the female needs to be conditioned, and have eggs. Then they spawn, and she holds them for 15 days. Then they keep them in the bubble nest for a while after that... considering yours' have only been there for 2 weeks, I don't think it's likely that they've done ALL that and had time for the fry to grow bigger than betta fry.
It would be possible, though, if she was already holding them when you moved her.
Keep an eye on them... CG fry are very slow growing, but you'll be able to tell eventually. How do the adults react to them? Are they eating them?

[Christine]

I bought the plants from a seller on AB. I saw some worms on the plants so I soaked them in an alum soak before using (and rinsed well). However, I used alum from the grocery which is apparantly not the same concentration as you get from other places because even after soaking overnight, the worms were still alive. The seller says the plants are grown in a fishless environment.

The adults pretty much seem to be ignoring them from what I can tell.

With a magnifying glass you can see the clear "edge" that goes around both sides of what looks like a tail and all the way up to the head, which really makes me think tadpole.