There are some good suggestions in this mail of Jalmj’s. Let me respond to two of them:
1. Commercial importers: I suggest that readers of this European forum in the different countries name the foremost companies that have proved to be reliable importers of licorice gouramies in their country here in this forum. There are always the same names, but sometimes a new one is to be added. I think, the name of the company and the country would suffice; everybody can find an internet-URL himself. I suggest Helene should collect those names/countries and put it into one overview, after some time.
2. Breeders in Germany: Indeed, we have quite a few good breeders in our country with many offspring of different species at times. And often there is the problem to get these fish into the hands of good aquarists who are conscious about the special requirements of blackwater fish that eat live food only. The shipping of these fish is no problem in principle since very small containers (f.i. plastic bottles) suffice because they are no permanently swimming fish. A problem is temperature resp. season (cold winter! hot summer!) and time (customs! habits of different shipping companies!), even within the European Union. In other words: Shipping within the borders of one contry is much less risky than transnational shipping, even within the EU. Sometimes there are no problems at all, things go fast, sometimes it’s the contrary. Therefore, the time of the year right now is not the best to have first tries. I suggest that we see which companies would do such a job and what the costs are. That will need some time and the temperatures will rise again. The potential addressees could help by clarifying the customs conditions (especially the time needed) in your country. There maybe no problem at all, but there maybe many problems, too (for example if declared as “living animals”, and good companies do that).
All partners mus be clear about the risks. It is not possible to take the breeder/sender as the only one taking responsibility for that risks.
The costs for such a relatively reliable shipping accross the borders could be markedly higher than the simple price for the animals. This must be clear to anybody involved. The money must be transmitted before, but this is much easier now with SEPA-banking than it was before.
So, there is no opposition against shipping across the borders in principle. We are gladly willing to do this. But there is good and bad experience with the results. Once, the whole things needed two and a half days only form breeder to recipient, but on several occasions – although it was said to be a quick thing – the parcel was stored at a border/at a customs office for a week, and the animals were dead when at last it arrived. Maybe we can minimize that risks by choosing special companies and make a fair agreement on the risks.
I shall add a last note: We are definitely willing to organize a first international meeting of the Parosphromenus-Project in September 2015 in Hamburg (Germany). There will be about ten species available. As soon as details are clear, we publish them here.