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SPAWNING SUNSET CHUNAS
A BAP Report by Ilene Alvis
Member, Kitsap Aquarium Society
Dwarf Gouramis (Colisa lalia) have always been one of my favorite fish for
the small community tank. They are small, peaceful with all tankmates,
brightly colored, easily maintained and modestly priced. Add to this is
the fact that they are easily spawned, altogether makes them the perfect
fish for the average hobbyist.
Sunset gouramis and Honey gouramis are actually Chunas (Colisa chuna). I
have consulted several books and could find no information as to what the
difference is between dwarf gouramis and chunas. I learned a little more
about them in an article in FAMA magazine by Max Gibbs. I don't know the
year as it is one of many articles I have torn from many magazines through
the years. Anyway, it says the Honey Gourami is now Colisa sota, not chuna
although that still doesn't help with identification. (In yet another
article it said chuna is the name for the male, and sota is the female, so
go figure.) Dwarf gouramis have stripes, although the red Dwarf gourami
does not. So stripes don't help with identification. The most obvious
difference is the size; chunas, or sotas, are smaller by nearly an inch
than the Dwarf gourami. (A personal observation here, a male sunset or
honey chuna can be told from a red or sunset Dwarf gourami by the dark eye
and the yellow on the dorsal fin. Dwarf gouramis, Colisa lalia will have
blue or red, but not yellow on the dorsal.) The females of both species
are almost totally lacking in color although careful observation will show
pale stripes in the lalia, and a dark stripe from head to tail in the
chuna.
To spawn the chunas I set them up in a 10 gallon tank that had very soft,
acid water; hardness measured 1 degree, and pH was 5.8. It had a gravel
bottom and a subsand filter which I turned off. I lowered the water level
so it was only about 2/3 full and planted it with water sprite, hygro,
duckweed, and a little java moss. The temperature was 82 degrees and light
was provided by a 15 watt fluorescent bulb for 16 hours a day.
The little male wasted no time and busied himself between keeping the
female herded into one corner of the tank, and building a bubble nest. The
really fun thing about spawning lalias and chunas is the intensity with
which they go about nest building. Not content to blow bubbles under a
leaf, they shred leaves and moss and stems and all these bits of flotsam
end up as part of this nest.
It took this little male 4 days to construct a half inch thick mat of
bubbles and botanical scenery before he paid romantic notice of the female.
Now his colors of flame red, deep blue and gold, stunning during nest
building, absolutely glowed. He would zip down to the corner where the
thoroughly cowed female huddled, nipped at her flank to gain her attention,
then swam slowly back to the next, stopping every inch or so to spread his
fins and show off his gorgeous colors. Slowly she emerged, and began
spreading her fins in response to him.
On day five spawning finally took place. I was unable to observe the
actual spawning and only knew it had taken place because the female was
visibly thinner, was huddled back in her corner, and the male was adding
another quarter inch to his nest. I moved her out before he injured her.
The eggs hatched in 24 hours and the fry could be seen as tiny black spots
among the bubbles and plant bits. The male kept watch over his fry for two
more days, and although he couldn't keep his 500 children corralled, he
could spit at me every time I opened the tank to feed.
From past experience with dwarf gouramis I knew that there was small
likelihood of his eating the hundreds of tiny fry, but I took him out
anyway, if just to keep from fouling the water with his food along with the
frys'.
Now comes the hard part of spawning any type gourami; keeping the fry
alive. The first think I do is the toughest, I try to remove at least half
the fry. With them all floating on the surface, this is easily done with a
fin meshed net, or even a cup to scoop them off the surface. I do this
because gouramis are very prolific egg producers, spawning several hundred
to several thousand fry. Unless you are breeding them in a pond in
Florida, there is simply no way to properly feed all these youngsters. If
you try, you will probably loose them all as I had done many times until I
stopped being so greedy.
Now, with a reasonable number of hungry little bellies to fill, I start
with Artificial Plankton/Rotifer powder and back it up with infusoria. I
normally try to keep at least two cultures going and feed a quarter cup per
day for at least the first week. I also restarted the air to the filters
but very slowly to not churn the fry in the water flow.
By the second week I started adding microworms and by the third, artemia
nauplii although I continued feeding the A.P.R. until I actually saw the
majority of the fry eating the artemia. It has been my experience, whether
I was spawning chunas, Dwarf gouramis, or the larger blues, golds, or
pearls, once I got them on the artemia, they were as good as raised. It's
the first two weeks that determines whether or not I'll succeed.
At about four weeks of age the fry begin to breath so I kept the lid closed
so the air is as swarm as the water which in my tanks is 80 to 82 degrees.
By now the air is turned up to normal and the fry look like tiny little
gouramis. I started adding fine flake food to their diet at this point.
Since there wasn't a great number of fry I left them in the original tank
instead of moving them to a larger one. I have learned that to grow any
kind of gourami to healthy adults without sunken-in heads, they need room
to grow and ample amounts of a variety of foods.
Reprinted with permission from "The Kitsap Aquarian", publication of the
Kitsap Aquarium Society, Inc., February 1995, pp. 29-30.
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Revised: September 13, 1999.
