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Hello,
because of the last census I want to talk about my experience with aquafish.
Because of ordering Sp. vaillanti there, I had some conversation by mail with the owner and I reported about the PP. He is interested to help finding Parosphromenus for us.
I red our old discussions in the igl-forum and found out that aquafish imported ornaticauda 10 years ago together with ruinemans.Yesteday he told me he could order ornaticauda from a dealer in Singapur. The problem is that he has to order about 200-300 fish. I don’t know the price yet.
He asked me how much fish we could take in the project.I want you to ask if we want to place an order? If every german member would take around 5 to 10 fish it could work.
What do you think?
I could go on working on this source.
The meeting in September could be a chance to give ornaticauda to other european members.Best regards
ChrisChris, you have the best in mind for our project, I see it. Presently, we have no ornaticauda in our tanks. Our experience with breeding them is among the poorest of all Parosphromenus. We should really try to advance our konwledge of that fish which is still a riddle to us in many respects. But there are some counter-arguments to your suggestions:
1. I contacted Aquafish more than ten years ago with regard to that first import of ornaticauda. They were entirely unable to provide the right water conditons for them; they used the Northeim tap water (I knwo it because I lived in Göttingen south of that little town). Most fish died soon, some lived long but were irreversely damaged. They may have learned by now, but they are traders with a short experience in fish that look nice but are unsuited for the normal aquarist.
2. We have imports of ornaticauda nearly every year. Thousands of young of the recent generation are caught, kept alive to an unknown percentage for days or weeks in pools or concrete tanks with unsuited waters and exported in the world, to great an extent to Europe. If the fish are offered, nearly all greater importers in our countries will offer them in some weeks time. Among them are more experienced dealers than Aquafish. Ruinemans for instance, or Glaser, or Aquarium Dietzenbach.
3. The German members of our project are a large part of the whole, but are surely not to be persuaded to take ten ornaticauda each from a doubtful trader. They know that they have to wait for a little time, and this species will be available at the big retailers, too.
4. At that time about ten years ago a German retailer innocent of these fish ordered a thousand of them. Some hundreds werde dead when arriving, others died the days after, and only then he cried for help. A friend tried to help him, and indeed saved about a hundred fish, but that’s not a single event. Nearly every two years especially ornaticauda is traded in huge amounts and kept to death in the same amounts in some weeks or months.
5. What is the conclusion of that? The best of our breeders should try agian, no doubt, to learn waht even they have not solved until now: the riddle of that species. So we should be alert to see it on the lists of the experienced and conscious European importers. But it’s not a species for all, and it’s a bad and wicked business one should not be a part of. Aquafish may have learned some lessons in the meantime. Perhaps they are now among the others conscious of the problem. I hope so.Dear Peter,
I understand what you are talking about. I saw a chance to get a new generation of ornaticauda for the PP. If there is a chance to get ornaticauda from the experienced dealers you mentioned, of course it is the better way. There is also big economically danger for aquafish too.
I didn’t know that ornaticauda is so difficult to handle for transport.
But I guess it is nearly the same for other Paros. A lot of fish will die on the way through the world.
That’s an critical aspect of our passion.I will report to aquafish that we decided to find ornaticauda in another way. Especially because of the uncertainty you mentioned.
Maybe ornaticauda will be available at the bigger dealers soon. Hopefully.
Kind regards
ChrisSupplement:
I wrote to aquafish that we are not interested in a big order. Nevertheless he will go on trying to get ornaticauda in smaller quantity.
As he told me aquafish was renamed into aquafish Northeim, was over taken by him and moved into bigger halls in 2009. Therefore the new aquafish has nothing to do with the old situation.
He told me, that he would not offer this possibility if he wouldn’t dare to do this.The dealer in Indonesia wrote to him today: “I am very sorry I am still searching for Ornaticauda, I asked the Supplier for wild fishes they said now the location of this fish is always flood very hard to get the fish. If any good news about this fishes I will inform you soon.”
Let’s see what will happen to this possibility.
One remark to our import by Ruinemans of Ornaticauda: As you all remember, the fish first were not able to be delivered, because they all had odium. They “healed” them and sold them than. I remember, that Peter said, after we posted fotos, that they were very small and weak.
Even Bernd in Hamburg didn´t succeed with breeding them, perhaps they were already sterile.
And I think we should think about the commercial importing of our fish – transport stress, wrong water parameter …
I think, the best we can hope from commercial trade is to get a pair, which produces offspring. Many of the wild caught fish do that once at the beginning.
If these offspring can produce also offspring and we manage to distribute them – the story ends lucky and we see the success in our census…
I have very old fish – now on to 10 years about – (still no Paros) – now I see that they are grown old man and ladies …like humans.
But nearly all wild caught labyrinth fish seem to have no more than one or two years … what are your experiences? My oldest two Spaerichtys selatanensis are about 5 years old … but they have been 8 ….
One of my lessons here from is: travelling is big stress for our fish. We should reduce fish travelling as much as possible. One longer transport is enough for one fish life (even with good water). Travelling reduces life-time of fish extreme.
So: look this time, that you organise the fish exchange at Hamburg in forward! Not to bring fish, nobody needs there! With Bernds fish there is no problem there, because he and his fish are “at home” there!
It is often the case that a pair which is breeding well will produce offspring that breeds still better in the next generation.
Al our experiences with ornaticauda are diffferent. There were very few cases of pairs breeding successfully or even good, but the next generation failed again. There must be a factor unknown to us hitherto responsible for that negative series.
Surely, the stress of trade fish could be enormous. We should not engage in that business mor than absolutely necessary.
By the way, the oldest Paro i know about was a deissneri male (true deissneri!) by master breeder Günter Kopic. The fish still displayed and tried to breed aged 8 years. Most Paros do not reach that age by far because of less intense care and water not suited best.Dear Dorothee,
Dear Peter,I can understand doro’s arguments about the Stress by transportation. But I can’t follow at all.
To my mind every paro from commercial trade had stress from shipping to Europe. Therefore it should be the same to fishes which were imported from interested specialists. The negative point about the commercial trade with huge numbers is the fact that most of the fish will die during further transportation in Europe, in tanks of local dealers, because nobody is interessted in this fish and the water parameters are wrong, or because of wrong parameters by their private owners during keeping.
In my opinion the non-commercial way is better to keep alive and breed more fish. Another question is if there will be more commercial trades in the future.
The transportation between specialist in Germany/Europe is another situation. How could we get rar fish and their juveniles to other interested people who want to keep and breed them? We need transportation. Special meetings are the easiest way to exchange species. What about the IGL-Meetings? I got my Paros from Martin and I’m happy about that chance. Should we stop the “Tauschbörse”? I don’t think so! Transportation is necessary to keep Paros alive in our community.
Yesterday I got contact to Indonesian paro group on Facebook. I’m working on organizing a few pairs of wild caught ornaticauda and real deissneri from these people who want to help me/us. They know the habitats, how to catch, keep and transportate those fish. If the weather is right they will try.
For me it is a way to get rar species without killing hundreds of them.Kind regards
ChrisHi Chris,
You understood me wrong. Of course our fish must travel, they don’t live in our garden ponds.
I just said we should minimize the travels for our fish. And of course “fischboersen” ( meetings to distribute fish) are necessary for us. And sometimes we need the trade. And private imports are better for the fish than commercial ones.
I just think we should be aware about our little fish and their comfort, and to be aware, if we let them suffer for our intentions.
And – you haven’t been last year at the Hamburg meeting, haven’t you? There some of us brought some fish from far away , there were some misunderstandings and we brought them back home. Me, I lost the half of them the next months.
When I got the first newsletter about the first Hamburg meeting, I proposed to add: what species/ how many fish can you bring and what species/ how many fish do you want to bring home with you. I’m not bad in organizing, I could have organize that. But nobody thought, that that would be necessary at that time…..
I hope that this year thes aspects will be optimized.As I told you I got contact to Indonesian paro group. Today in morning I got the message that “Henry” (a member and collector) got 10 pairs of real deissneri he organized for me/us and will keep them well till ornaticauda is collectable.
Then he will organize transport to Germany. The following photo shows the collected fish.Kind regards
ChrisThis is a very strange posting. It’s again about a “large scale order” for P. ornaticauda, that until now always has ended with hundreds of dead fish. But the strangest thing is that it mentions 10 pairs of true P. deissneri that an Indonesian “collector” has “organized” waiting for ornaticauda; the picture seems to show that species that has been never traded before.
I am very upset about this. P. deissneri is endemic on the island of Bangka only and, as we know personally by the joint expedition of the Chinese expert Wentian Shi and the Japanese expert Hiroyuki Kishi some months ago is left at one small place only in small numbers. All other known locations of that species have been completely dried and destroyed for the plague of new palm-oil-plantations.
The P-P cannot support any activities of “collectors” who engage in including a species left in minimum numbers at a single place only into that trade business of pure fish keeping. Announcing that collector-activity here is not meeting the mentality and spirit of the P-P. As an administrator of this forum I still hesitate to take stronger measures, but they perhaps maybe necessary.
True deissneri are present in Germany at two places with good breeders. There is no need to expoit the fragile source commercially!
I’m sorry but I feel really misunderstood now.
I quit the idea of importing a huge number of ornaticauda because of the arguments and experiences you mentioned.
To my mind another way could be to contact people who are interested in Paros like us and live near their habitats.
Therefore some days ago I contacted the Indonesian Paro group on Facebook. This people are specialized hobbyists like us who discuss about the same problems of environmental destroying, want to save and breed rar Paros (betta too) and are not interested in commercial trade for this fishes.
They know the habitats because they have been there and know about the danger of loosing this species. They are also searching for locations were rar species survived, for example deissneri.
They don’t want to give this fish to unskilled people.I asked if they could help to organize rar species like ornaticauda and deissneri in small! numbers for personal import, because the last census shows off that we don’t have much fish of this species.
For me it had nothing to do with commercial trade of rar species like deissneri!
That we have 2 successful breeding population of deissneri i didn’t know till to this day.So yesterday I got the message including the picture that a member of this group captured some pairs of deissneri to “help us”. They organized really fast. Of course I was surprised about it and didn’t know how to react.
I shared this news with PP because for me it seems to be a good way.
Now I recognize that my effort is noticed as wrong acting of me by the PP. That’s why I feel misunderstood.
It is not my aim to import any paro for commercial trade, of course especially not rar species like deissneri!To my mind it’s not reproducible what difference exist between the situation that a European who loves this fish goes there to get to know the environment of this fish, capture some by himself and transport them home for breeding and saving or if a local with the same knowledge about this species captures them and help to ship them to Europe. The stress during transport should be nearly the same.
In both situations hundreds of fish don’t have to die because of bad circumstances during commercial trade. Of course there is danger that they die during personal import.I will try to import them by myself with the help of the Indonesian paro group.
I hope I will get living fish to breed and give them to interested members of the PP. if there are interested people…I hope that I was able to explain my point of view.
Chris, there is no doubt about your personal motives and about the personal motives of many people in the Indonesian group. We know some of them personally.
The question is about the factual effect, the collateral damages of spreading such news. I think it was good that you clarified your position. That will help us to draw the borderline correctly. The spirit of the P-P is to reduce the commercial exploitation of the meanwhile very few intact biotopes of our fish. This is difficult, I know, but necessary. We must improve breeding and strive at getting rid of the “help” of the trade. We still are rather far away from this, of course.
Horst Linke has got a pair of deissneri from the re-discoverer Wentian Shi, the other pairs stay with him. There are other fish which we don’t speak about. We are in constant contact with the aim of preparing useful steps with the help of an international organization. Let’s be quiet now; it will be the best for our fish.
Hello , reading Your posts I started to think about what’s our ( P-P ) goal is .. I mean at the begining I had a feeling that we are happy when any Parosphromenus species is available in any of importer’s tank . The reason is – only in this way this taxon can be available to as many aquarists as possible , not only P-P members…
I have doubts in fact that any collector can destroy some population by catching fishes .. specially Parosphromenus fishes . You can not cach many of them at one time, You need to spend a lot of time ( = money) to cach the fishes and You are no sure that all of them will survive . Caterpillars destroyed Parosphromenus habitats – not collectors … or I’m wrong ….( I’m open for disscusion or we can have it in our meeting ..:) )Indeed, we seem to have a dilemma here. Collectors may not destroy but heavily disturb. And the fish will suffer on their way through trade. And they will die at normal aquarists – they will not care for the water parameters, forget to change the water and feed dry food.
Hello , ok I understand. So may by the goal is to import only minimum quantity of fish from their natural habitats and do it by the expirienced persons . And then breed them ( as many as we can) and spread widely among every aquarist who want to challenge with Parosphromenus.. Few of them will get Parosphromenus ” disease” and we have one more breeder ….
I think it make sense ….
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