[Peter Finke]

Chris, you have the best in mind for our project, I see it. Presently, we have no ornaticauda in our tanks. Our experience with breeding them is among the poorest of all Parosphromenus. We should really try to advance our konwledge of that fish which is still a riddle to us in many respects. But there are some counter-arguments to your suggestions:
1. I contacted Aquafish more than ten years ago with regard to that first import of ornaticauda. They were entirely unable to provide the right water conditons for them; they used the Northeim tap water (I knwo it because I lived in Göttingen south of that little town). Most fish died soon, some lived long but were irreversely damaged. They may have learned by now, but they are traders with a short experience in fish that look nice but are unsuited for the normal aquarist.
2. We have imports of ornaticauda nearly every year. Thousands of young of the recent generation are caught, kept alive to an unknown percentage for days or weeks in pools or concrete tanks with unsuited waters and exported in the world, to great an extent to Europe. If the fish are offered, nearly all greater importers in our countries will offer them in some weeks time. Among them are more experienced dealers than Aquafish. Ruinemans for instance, or Glaser, or Aquarium Dietzenbach.
3. The German members of our project are a large part of the whole, but are surely not to be persuaded to take ten ornaticauda each from a doubtful trader. They know that they have to wait for a little time, and this species will be available at the big retailers, too.
4. At that time about ten years ago a German retailer innocent of these fish ordered a thousand of them. Some hundreds werde dead when arriving, others died the days after, and only then he cried for help. A friend tried to help him, and indeed saved about a hundred fish, but that’s not a single event. Nearly every two years especially ornaticauda is traded in huge amounts and kept to death in the same amounts in some weeks or months.
5. What is the conclusion of that? The best of our breeders should try agian, no doubt, to learn waht even they have not solved until now: the riddle of that species. So we should be alert to see it on the lists of the experienced and conscious European importers. But it’s not a species for all, and it’s a bad and wicked business one should not be a part of. Aquafish may have learned some lessons in the meantime. Perhaps they are now among the others conscious of the problem. I hope so.