[Peter Finke]

Big Tom, it’s a fine thing that you let us participate in your thoughts, accompanied by those jungle-like pictures. I am well on your side when you oppose your way of keeping a beautiful aquarium to the usual high-tech type, and I can understand very well the problem of bringing the needs of the plants into a balance with the needs of the fish. In standard aquaria this is much less a problem because you are using tap water with a higher degree of solved minerals and a pH not necessarily as low as it is needed for Parosphromenus. You can use stronger lighting and feed the plants with special nutrients. All that is nearly forbidden if keeping (and perhaps) breeding black-water fish properly, since the activity of the plants would be much too high and the water conditions would become rather instabile. So your tank is not only aesthetically wonderful but also a valuable test type of a low tech tank for fish which cannot stand the usual high tech conditions. But is nevertheless a dream landscape of an underwater jungle.
We wait and see in which direction it will develop. And it’s a good idea to establish some small tanks additionally for breeding that fish. One could not exclude the possibility of one or another young that survives in that big tank, if the water is not too hard. The eggs of the Parosphromenus are very delicate and don’t stand an osmotic pressure that is too high for them. But maybe the water values are just at the border of acceptability, and then there might be some suprises nevertheless.