Okay, this isn’t betta-related, but being labyrinth fish and bubble-nesters I thought their care might be similar. These are my first fry, so I know they probably won’t survive, but I’d like to give at least a couple of them a go.
Recently I got given a pair of Gold Gourami from my older brother. They went into a half-filled Sterilite tub with a peat-based substrate, some floating water sprite and a few IAL. This was temporary until their custom built tank was finished.
These two fish were so skittish they would slam into the side of the tub if I so much as stood up. They were also quite aggressive with each other, and after noticing that one had a couple of nasty tears in its fins, I separated it into another tank and left the other where it was.
In the meantime there was this film of bubbles on the surface of the water in the Sterilite tub, and thinking it was condensation from the lid being on, I just did a quick water change and then went onto changing out my other tanks.
Yesterday, I came home from the LFS to see at least 200 fry swimming about. They are everywhere and I have no idea how I’m going to change the water. The tub isn’t set up for a spawning tank, and I can’t remove whatever Gourami is in there until my tank is ready. However, I’m worried that the ammonia is building up but equally worried if I try to use my siphon I’m going to inadvertently suck some up.
So here are a few questions:
What do I feed the fry? I can get frozen BBS and daphnia, as well as live mosquito larvae, bloodworms, and frozen brine and mysis shrimp for when they’re bigger. Would there be anything to eat on my live plants/in the peat mulm in my substrate?
How do I do water changes? I think the low pH will mean ammonia is not so harmful, but there’s no filter in there and there’s only about 25 litres of water. The fry are swimming around now so I can’t even gently siphon around them. Plus I’m afraid that adding new water might shock them. For my Killifish I have been boiling up some peat moss and extracting the water from that to mix with my tap water. Would this work for my fry?
Finally, do bettas eat Gourami fry? I was thinking of netting a big bunch and giving them to my bettas/killifish to eat. There’s no way I would be able to offload so many Gouramis if they miraculously do survive. Part of me deliberated in just throwing a few of my female bettas in there and letting them do some culling for me.
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Of all my fish to breed it had to be Gouramis. Not my pair of Bettas Rutilans, or my Killifish. I didn't even want the Gouramis in the first place and now they're taking up the tank I was going to use for my Betta Unimaculatas. 
