Thank you, Helene and especially Peter for your exhausting statements.
Ok, I see – it’s a decision between your own laziness on one side and the much bigger efforts for accomplishing nearly ideal living conditions for the fishes on the other side.
For me the limit for my laziness would be the well-being of the fishes, even if they don’t breed. I think if someone is too lazy even for that – he shouldn’t keep fishes or animals at all. I understand that you see it in the same way.
As I told before, I make weekly water changes of about 20 %, sometimes more, in all my aquariums. I have very few fishes in these tanks, too. I keep the Badis species as single pairs, the Pseudosphromenus are two pairs in a 120 liter tank. All fishes began to breed soon after moving into their new tanks – and it’s the same as you told, Peter: You immediately have very much fry in a (then!) rather small tank.
It’s a simple decision according to instinct to make my regular water changes: I have the impression that all inhabitants of the tanks enjoy the “rainfall” – even the shrimps which I keep besides in every tank.
And – to tell the truth – it’s a pleasure for me, too. It connects you to your aquariums, keeps you in close contact. That’s my feeling – maybe it sounds weird….. And I know that it’s kind of luxurious – I don’t have 33 tanks, I can still indulge myself in making weekly water changes in the few tanks I have.
Ok – I’ll stay with that, making my weekly water changes.
And I will keep in mind, Peter, that doing less water changes is a trick to keep fishes from nonstop breeding. It’s a kind of dilemma I’m in: I want to keep my fishes in conditions that are as ideal as possible for them. When I succeed the fishes breed …. and breed ….. and too many fry in a tank decrease the quality of living conditions (apart from the difficulty to find new owners for the fry…). I am happy that my fishes breed – but too many fry give me a bad conscience……………
To come to an end: The question of too many fry is still purely hypothecial for me – concerning paros. Let’s see if I succeed in giving them the conditions to start breeding at all.