When are they going to stop?

[Gayle]

Hello everyone. I am new to this, so if my questions are goofy, please dont laugh. I have a male and female Lavender gourami, I have had them for almost a month now, and the tank is doing well as far as ph and nitrates, temp etc. The problem is that for a week now the male has been working on the bubblenest pretty much 24 hours a day, they both have been changing color to real bright when they get around each other or the nest. The male also is attacking anything that gets close to the nest, I think actually he may have killed one of my mollies. Yesterday I walked in and saw them "mating", wrapped up and doing that slow spin, but did not see any eggs release. A few days ago I was sure I saw eggs in the nest, they looked like bubbles, but opaque? The female does look a little bigger in the tummy, and is constantly being chased around by the male. So how long is this going to go on? I have done everything I can think of, given them lots of plants to hide in, and floating things for the nest, leave the lights off for longer, and keep everyone out of the room (in case they are shy about it). To me a week seems like a very long time to be at this! So are they going to stop soon? Is he going to quit being so aggressive then? Should I just buy another tank for him?

[Gayle]

Well, the eggs appeared on Friday, and hatched on Saturday. I have a breeding net in the tank where I figured I could save a few eggs. Yeah, well, it ended up being like 200 or 300. OOPS! I have no clue what to do with that many fish! There are actually a bunch outside of the net too, swimming around the tank. They looked like someone sprinkled pepper in my tank at first. LOL Now they look like eyelashes swimming around. They are fast too! Really cute! The female was back to normal colors for a day or so, and the male has not calmed down a bit, he is really protective of the babies. I did take him out for a little while, but he seemed aggitated, as well as the female, so I put him back in the big tank. The mollies are getting moved to a new tank all of their own! Everything seemed ok but today he started to make another bubblenest? I have not changed any of the water since Thursday for fear of hurting the fry, nor have I increased the heat. So I do not know what he is doing, the female is back to her soft lavender and silverish color so I do not think she is ready? I am thinking maybe I should get another female, so he can give this one a break. Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it good or bad to have 2 females?

[Holyvision]

You can have more than one, but if you don't want the number of fry you already have, them maybe you just want to pull out the female and separate them.

--Holy

[Gayle]

I really did not want to do that, but it looks like I may have to. The fry are doing good, just really looking like little fish now, and they have more eggs already. I figured there would be a larger gap of time in between, but sure enough they have a few hundred eggs in there. So I guess they dont ever really stop for any length of time do they?

[Bodhi]

Just a suggestion here, but you could take both the parents out for awhile and let the mollies work on the fry until you've only got a few left. I know it seems cruel but if you really can't house 300 fry, you can't let them get big enough to kill your tank(s).

Also, just a suggestion but when my Bettas bred I'd always cull the eggs until I had just ten or so. It's far less cruel to just not let the eggs even hatch, and while daddy may get a bit angry about the disruption, it's easier on him in the long run.

Good luck.