A rank of small tanks

[Peter Finke]

This is a rank of small tanks built in a book-shelf in my study-room.

[Jacob]

what plants are in those tanks? You previously mentioned water sprite and java moss as being safe for blackwater conditions, I can’t tell if there are other plant species in your tank photos.
I’m currently planning a chocolate gourami tank (a slightly bigger licorice gourami tank I guess), and want to use water sprite, but would love to add something like cryptocoryne (if it is even possible to use substrates in a blackwater tank).
Floating and emersed water sprite seems like a good idea, but what plants are in the tanks you’ve got pictured here?

[Marcin Chyla]

Hello, becouse I’m still waiting for my P. deissneri I’m during set-up a new tank for my P.sumatranus. I have one problem – in small tank ( 10-15 L) without eletric heater are probably big temperature changes beetwen day and night ? Is this good for Paros ? What max and min. temperature is ideal (like in natural habitats) for paros ? and is this could be generalize for all species?

[Peter Finke]

Reply to Jacob:
Jacob, you asked for the plants I use in my small tanks. I could take that as a difficult or as an easy question. It’s difficult if taken generally: How to combine plant growth and stable healthy conditions for licorice gouramis in small tanks without a permament water flow? We must discuss that, without doubt. But here, I shall take it as an easy question, simply asking for the plants I use.
Mostly Vesicularia submerged and Ceratopteris at the water surface, as we said already. It’s a problem with submerged plants to stand the low light, the low pH and the low contents of dissolved nutrients. Therefore I use other plants only a few here and then: a small piece of a Ludwigia palustris or repens, a small piece of Potamogeton gayi, here and there a small Cryptocoryne, different species, in a small pot. For I have only a very thin layer of brown or black gravels at the bottom of my tanks (much less than 1 cm), thought as a settling ground for bacteria; it’s too thin for most plant roots. Only recently I found that a very tender Utricularia, perhaps gibba, is doing quite well in these conditions, building nests of tender growth. Often, it grows on the surface, too, building thicker layers there. So we arrive at the floating plants. Ceratopteris thalictroides is best, but there are Salvinia auriculata, some small pads of Riccia fluitans which tend to become fragile and loose there, or the unavoidable Lemna spec..
So you see: I avoid rooted plants which need to be planted in a thick layer on the bottom, although I love them and let them grow in some other, bigger tanks with other fish. But I know: There are people successfully growing and breeding Parosphromenus in such tanks, too. I think, that the most important thing is – besides the low content of dissolved salts and nutrients in the water that you need for the survival of the eggs of the licorice gouramis – not the low pH as such, but the avoidance of noxious bacteria and germs, harmful to eggs, larvae and inducing infections with the fish. You can manage that with planted aquaria, but also you can produce quite the contrary conditions.
But here the difficult version of the question begins, and therefore I finish. (But we can and must discuss that!)

[Peter Finke]

Reply to Martin:
Martin, you asked for the changes in temperature that you could impute to the licorice gouramis. I do not know exactly, but I should be careful. My tanks without electric heater are placed in rooms with rather stable temperatures between 19 and 25 degrees Celsius. They are heated in winter, and in summer the hottest temperatures outside the house do not affect the room temperature very much; in any case it’s always below 30 degrees. And experience shows that to be an important maximum boarderline; Parosphromenusdon’t stand higher temperatures for long.
It’s much more difficult to give the low boarderline. As you see, I make no experiments with lower temperatures than 19 degrees Celsius. But we often send Parosphromenus-fish with a post-parcel. There are sometimes problems at times with high temperatures (above 30 degrees, as I mentioned above), but only seldom the opposite. Of course, if it’s freezing outside, you have to take measures by a good packing and use heatings packs, and generally we tend to avoid such periods for sending. But often the parcel arrives (mostly after one or two nights of travel) with water cooled to 16 or 17 degrees Celsius, and the fish are quiet but obviously healthy. Those low temperatures are certainly too low for keeping the fish in the aquarium, but if they are healthy they stand them if necessary.
Mostly, my tanks have 22 – 24 degrees Celsius. “Lower is better than hotter” seems to be a good rule.
I don’t think there are important differences between the species. Parosphromenus is rather homogeneous a genus; that is valid for their demands with temperatures, too.

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