[Jacob]

I will go to seriously fish and I will pay attention to what the person who’s successfully bred selatanensis has done- but this question could relate to any blackwater gourami- does live food that is cultured for blackwater fish need to be raised in blackwater conditions?
I’m trying to understand the sensitivity of blackwater fish- it’s their immune systems that aren’t able to handle bacteria, I think I have that part down. And maybe they don’t tolerate change, the usual description of a fish that is not hardy. And for some reason they are used to humic substances being present and this is an element of their environment they’ve evolved to put up with or need, and is one part of the list of unchangeable environmental demands that need to be respected to keep them alive and breeding.
Where it is in the chain of interaction with the fish and their aquariums that they usually get killed and which part of their physiology is it that dooms them. This is what I am trying to get to the root of. And perhaps they are not so delicate that food from normal water would kill them. Maybe the conditions in their aquarium mean that if something is introduced, even if they eat it or are somehow exposed to it the disease organism will not have a chance to catch on and hurt them. I’m ignorant of biology, I’m not ignorant of the seeming inevitability of failure with chocolate gouramis. And that is the last I’ll say about chocolate gouramis, this isn’t the place for it.