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Here’s my second question! And it’s a very simple one – do licorice gourami ever learn to trust the hand that feeds them rather than to duck into hiding whenever a person appears?
I can’t speak for all of them, but my 6 are actually usually out where I can see them. A noise like a door shutting will startle them, but otherwise they are out in the open area of the tank. But, the tank has a lot of duckweed, so they may not feel like they are out in the open. The only time this has changed with mine is when I move them to a new tank. Then they hide for a week or so before they are back out.
OK. Thank you for your input. By the way, here’s another question: do Parosphromenus species share the usual anabantoid propensity to jump and thus require lids?
To the questions of the Almighty:
1. Shyness: You can overcome the shyness by giving company of Boraras species. But then, no young will survive.2. Rooted plants, Cryptocoryne etc.: Think of the structure of a blackwater aquarium with pH of 6 or less and water with minimal mineral contents. You cannot add plant fertilizers in order to prevent those values to be changed considerably. Therefore planting is restricted severely. If you speak of Cryptocoryne, you probably mean Sri Lanka species. Borneo and Malaysia species (although they should be adapted to those water values) require “nutritional springs” of non-stable fertilizers (as two-valued Fe) in a river with fluent waters; you cannot cultivate them in the normal aquarium conditions). Sri Lanka species are easily to cultivate in normal tanks, but not in the water mentioned above. Of course, you can create a moderate milieu not below pH 6.0 and with a small amount of minerals and use many plants in that to a certain extent. But it’s a compromise. Plants constantly change the water conditions in order to be able to live. Therefore, most friends of Parosphromenus either dispense with plants altogether or restrict planting very much to javamoss, java fern and swimming plants. I recommend to use a very thin layer of chemically neutral gravel only (not more than half an inch or less) as a settling ground for bacteria but not for the roots of plants. Everything else is a compromise. Of course, you can accept that (I do sometimes, too), but I don’t see any better solution for reasons of the structure of an aquarium which is different to a habitat with running water and a voluminous ground of peat and old organic materials.
3. Jumping: Most Paros don’t tend to jump since they don’t use their labyrinth. But there are exceptions. There have been losses by fish jumping out. I did not experience that myself, but there are reports that it happenend.
My linkei, quindecim and tweediei eat frozen food from the block when I hold it in their tanks, which you could consider trusting the hand feeding them.
To my experience, shyness strongly depends on species, tankmates, but even more on the tank setup and the feeding hand’s owner. I kept my first paro’s (some bintan-like type) in a 25L tank full of oak leaves. There was more place to hide than to swim and I never saw my fish. After a while I considered them dead, so I moved the tank’s contents to my 100cm tank. When moving, I discovered the pair still existed, but moved them anyway. It was not very long later they started swimming around in the meter tank, not worried at all about my presence… They started breeding soon hereafter.
P. linkei never seems shy, not even in shops. P. quindecim idem. I have two pairs of tweediei, in two different tanks. One tank consists of some stones, moss, and a few leaves. The other tank is full of stones(forming caves), Sagittaria subulata(a grassy plant) and Lilaeopsis. Too much hiding space, apparently, for I seldom see them, and when they see me they disappear.It is also very important how you behave in front of your paro’s. If you press your nose against the glass they’ll feel observed and dart away, but if you sit down in front of the tank and watch for around ten minutes, they will come out of hiding and start doing the things paros use to do.
Combine these factors, and you either never or always see your fish.
@Peter
Most crypto species I try do actually survive and grow, even in my most acidic and dark tanks. I always lose their names, but some green species grows in a tank I can only see my Betta hendra(a super-shiny species) when they’re at the front glass watching me (which seems to be their hobby… It’s a strange feeling, being observed by the creature you’re observing…), and still I only see their colour with a flashlight.
Still, java fern does a lot better in these tanks.
I have to add I use peat granules instead of gravel or sand. Peat contains a lot of nutritious chemicals, so this probably influences their growth and tolerance of unfriendly waters.Bartian’s remarks on shyness are entirely correct. It depends.
Very experienced breeders (see http://www.guenter-kopic.de) make sure that their tanks are not placed within very light rooms. They cover the back and side glasses with black paper. The inner parts of the tank must be the parts with the most light, not the room outside. Then you will see you fish and they will not be shy.
It’s a marked difference with P. sumatranus. Interestingly, all breeders of this species report on its shyness. Mine were always very shy.
Cryptocoryne: We need the names, Bartian, and that is: the correct names. The normal aquarium species are species from Sri Lanka (Ceylon), such as wendtii, willisii, “nevillii”, beckettii, or undulata. The C. wendtii is the most-traded Cryptocoryne in many variants (broad leaves, narrow leaves, green, brown, speckled etc.). They are hard and to cultivate submersed in aquaria without severe problems. Nearly all species from the homelands of our Parosphromenus are difficult to cultivate submersed (not: affinis, but affinis will not do in soft water!).
Peat: Of course there is peat without any fertilizers. But you must be very conscious about that. Most peat for gardeners is sold contaminated with fertilizers. That is useless or poisonous for our purposes, of course. But you can buy pure peat.
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