Parosphromenus-Newsletter No. 109 
Bielefeld (Germany), April 7th, 2013
Dear friends, this time again some issues have come together: 1 New Members, 2 the death of Willi Harvey, 3 the new census has just begun, 4 personnel changes in the steering group, 5 Bill Little is the new moderator of the American forum, 6 a remark on two Paro species, and 7 the question of breeding with animals who have a physical defect.
1 New members of the Parosphromenus project
The following people have encountered the project since the last newsletter:
– Lee Kyung Won from the USA
– Stephen Parlin from Columbus / Ohio USA
– “Emmanuel” from?
– Jeremy Pong from Muar in Malaysia
– Andrea Brandi from Rome in Italy
– Stefaan Riem in Wielsbeke in Belgium
– Teunis? from Holland
– Alexandar Milanovic from Lilienthal in Germany
All are welcome!
2 Willi Harvey (2013 – 1916)
His name will be forever associated by P. harveyi with the Paros: One of our pioneers, the German-English breeder Willi Harvey, has died at the age of 97 in Scotland. Barbara and Allan Brown commemorate her good friend in a personal obituary. It can be read on a link, which can be accessed on the homepage of our website or by simply clicking here: http://www.parosphromenusproject.org/en/component/content/article.html?id=919
3 New census (Spring 2013) has begun
The new count our Paro stocks in the aquarium has begun. All should participate, including those who currently keep no Paros or do not breed. The “none” is not unimportant for the overall picture, so we get an idea of how large the proportion of passive members is currently under way; that could change quickly indeed.
Important is the information on locations when your fish descended from those in which it is known. Otherwise, the missing information will be treated to indicate that they relate to fish from the trade, which are normally dealt without information on locations. (Exception: spec. Ampah, here this a known location.).
This is the first census, which will be supervised by Benjamin Wilden. We are very pleased that “Bennie”, who has been with us here since several years already, has now taken over this important task from Christian Hinz. We are also glad that Uwe Küster makes the first step of processing the census as he did last time already, and assembles all incoming responses to a synopsis. This will help Benjamin crucial to recognize the trends and comment on everything. Thanks, Uwe!
Does not push the participation on the back burner! In an instant, April is over!
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4 Changes in the steering group
There have been two major changes in our Steering Group: Christian Hinz has resigned because he has to temporarily give up the whole Paro husbandry and breeding to be set entirely on important personal changes. Christian, despite his youth was a very valuable friend who supervised the census very well in recent years and by his travels to Malaysia gathered most valuable information and fish. To him we owe, for example, that P. allani and P. spec. Sungai Stunggang exist back in stock. Both forms have never been traded.
Christian, we wish you all the best, but we are sure that you will return one day.
And yet someone has left us who was a very helpful member: Michael Beuscher. He was in charge of the distribution task for a few years and ensured that new friends received fish and breeders on the other hand could leave their offspring to interested hobbyists. Michael unfortunately had to give up this function for health reasons. For him, we enjoy to have Frank Büttner from Fehrbellin in Brandenburg, soon Meiningen in Thuringia, as a new member of the steering group. A warmly welcome!
Frank brings a lot of ideas of how to further improve the distribution thing. This is necessary, because we still have many more offspring than people who are waiting for them. The whole distribution organization still works well only in Germany, but less well in other countries. Perhaps Frank could help to better this.
For the members of the project Parosphromenus nothing changes. Your mails are frowarded to the addresses unchanged: for the census by census@parosphromenus-project.org (request for fish) and for the distribution by distribution@parosphromenus-project.org. Helene Schoubye has switched the addresses so that all information or inquiries are forwarded automatically to the two new persons named (and to Uwe Küster).
5 Bill Little will be moderating our America Forum
We are delighted that Bill Little has agreed to take over the moderation of our American section of the forum Parosphromenus project and replace Mark Denaro in this role. Thanks, Mark, for your work!
Bill is a long-time connoisseur of labyrinth fish and other fish groups, and was interested nearly from the very beginning in the development of the Parosphromenus project. He is a co-founder of ALFA, the U.S. Society of Anabantoids. We are quite confident that the American Forum will be growing and becoming lively with him. Welcome, Bill!
6 P. opallios in trade, P. sp. Ampah successfully bred
In several countries, P. opallios occured in trade, such as in the United States. In addition, several friends succeeded in breeding the new filamentosus-variant P. spec. Ampah. Congratulations!
7 Breeding with animals who have physical defects?
In a recent case vital “blue-lines” with three ventral fins, which already produced offspring, the owner would be happy to use for breeding because he cannot replace it safely by a fish of the same form. This gives reason to discuss it. I (PF) have discouraged from breeding. But how would you comment on that issue? Please, open a new forum topic if interested!
For today, greetings from your steering group. Responsible: Peter Finke (Bielefeld / Germany).
(We are always happy for suggestions to improve the newsletter. The translations were created with the help of machine translation. Therefore, please excuse any linguistic errors)