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Paros Blue Line is available to me from a dealer. It is the first time they have used the name Blue Line and I am not sure what I might get get. There seems to be a great deal of confusion about what fish Blue Line might be from importers. I do have the room for another species but am a bit leary of what fish it might actually be.
Is anyone currently keeping Blue Line? .. or .. might it currently be available everywhere and few of you have also have it on the market now and actually seen the fish??
“Blue line” is one of the few trade names that has been given by the traders themselves. It is not helpful, of course. Reasonable are only names giving locations. All species or forms which have been found and imported by experts have been given names of the locations where they have been found.
“Blue line” is an expression either of helplessness (which bintan-like Paros is not “blue lined”?) or of the intention to conceil the location (For the trade it’s a business: If you found a rich catching ground you are a fool if you speak out loudly where it is). It needed about two years to learn that the most “blue lines” come from Sumatra, in the north of the district Jambi. At that time (about 2005/06) we were far from knowledge how many bintan-like Paros were swimming in Jambi alone. Horst Linke was the first who seriously travelled there in 2008/2009 to find more than seven variants at different places, and some others clearly not bintan themselves).
Another Jambi-based bintan-variant that was given the trade name by the traders themselves is spec. Sentang. They called it “P. sintangensis” camouflaging by this that this form is not yet scientifically determined or – on the contrary – suggesting that one has found a new species by imitating the way science names them (“sintangensis”). Without a scientific description in a scientific journal including ardeous measurement work, preserved “types” stored at an institution (museum) and a clear location no latinized name is valid. So, we call this form rightly P. spec. Sentang as long science has not clarified its relation to bintan and others.
But all this is not the really crucial point with “blue line”. That is: There have been different forms sold bearing that name. It’s hardly possible to decide which was the original “blue line”. I had different fish (some with long whitish ventrals for instance, some with short bluish ventrals, …) at different times, all sold as “blue line”. The clear background is: The trade is not interested in correct names, it is interested in business. In the years from 2005 Sumatra was detected as a big catching ground for Paros. There a newly detected catching ground could not be named openly, and a insignificant name as “blue line” was helpful. And since people normally don’t look very closely at these fish several similar forms were sold bearing the same name. Then another productive catching ground was found in the north of Jambi with fish looking slightly different, not as blue and sparkling as the “blue lines” but a bit greenish and less spectacular. Ans so the trade decided: Let’s sell it as a new species, we call it as new species are named by science: P. sintangensis. That was unjustified, of course, but it helped commerce. At that time (around 2007/08) when we learned which location was meant we corrected the name to spec. Sentang.
Only science is allowed to give latinized names, but the trade should keep hands off naming fish or give the location.
However: the “blue lines” can be wonderful, beautiful fish! Especially those with that long whitish ventrals, but this with the short bluish too. Their colours are sparkling more than that of the spec. Sentang and remind of that of P. harveyi (from Western Malaysia). So, try to get some of them and breed them. In the last years the “blue lines” were sold significantly less than before, replaced by the never-ending spec. Sentang. And mixed with it. So, I hope you will be lucky a receive the original “blue line”, although it is not fully clear what the “original blue line” was 😉
Thank you Peter for this long explanation. I have never really quite understood this about those two species. Its very informative and good to know.
It would be good if we could somehow get some photoes of the blue line – I dont know if we have that ?Thank you all for the replies! I understand the confusion better with names, and species, and forms, and types. Wew!!
I guess the best thing to do is order some on Monday and wait and see what arrives in the surprise package. They usually send very small fish..except for the small parvulus which were young adults.
The fish are being offered by the “Wet Spot” here in the states… they usually get Paros every week or two, which is nice… the only regular source available that I know of. He never knows exactly what is coming into stock, since I believe that they are all ordered as Paros gouramis. Examples are the spec Ampah which as young fish came in as Filamentosus!
(which I still believe are Ampah as they are showing no signs of reds or browns)I must wait until I see actual spawning behaviours.No, cannot say much about this species more than you probably have been thinking yourself 🙂
Of the described species in our gallery its none really – mostly like the ‘bintan’ type I would say. But if you look under other forms ‘blue line’ I think its pretty closeBut the reddish in the caudal fin is that the lightening or any kind of red there ?
I did not order the Blue Lines, the dealer ran a bit short and I did not want to buy few since the risk of male and female is low, so I ordered Opallios.
The Opallios will be arriving tomorrow, they say they are approx 1 to 1.5 inches.(I ordered 6 of them, hoping to get a pair)
How do they ever get a name like Giant Red Sparkling Licorice Gouramis?? A good retail name for sales I guess.
Maybe next Blue Line order they get in I’ll jump faster! or wait til I have some success with what I have…. I just hate to see them shipped off to general retailers.
[quote=”Ted” post=1893]Paros Blue Line is available to me from a dealer. It is the first time they have used the name Blue Line and I am not sure what I might get get. There seems to be a great deal of confusion about what fish Blue Line might be from importers. I do have the room for another species but am a bit leary of what fish it might actually be.
Is anyone currently keeping Blue Line? .. or .. might it currently be available everywhere and few of you have also have it on the market now and actually seen the fish??[/quote]
Reminding the answer of Peter, I refer to the brand-new example of sp. “Jambi” Blue Line available in Tokyo.
Parosufuromenusu is probably a wrong translation of パロスフロメヌス :whistle:
However, it’s intriguing to compare the results of a search for パロスフロメヌス in Google Pictures with the images we get when using it’s (right) translation.
Some remarks on “Blue line”-Paros:
As all of you know by now the name-giving of the fish-traders is chaotic. There are only two leading principles that seem to be of commercial value only: first, give a name that gives rise to interesting thoughts and connotations, so that people buy the fish (“Giant red sparkling licorice gouramy”). Second: helplessness. All these fish look alike, but the experts say they are different! OK, some have red, others only blue, so let those with red be called “Red line” and that with blue be called “Blue line”. In 2005 we had in Europe lots of “Red line”-Paros. It is not clear up to the present day what it was; probably different species mixed or not mixed; totally unclear.
And at the same time the “Blue lines”. Here, the situation is different, for it was the time when the rich Paro-habitats on Sumatra were found and the exploitation started. Since then we learned that Sumatra harbours several new species but a lot of bintan-like forms, too. They may (partly) even be identical with bintan, but we don’t know hitherto. Among those bintan-like forms were (and are) two from the north of Jambi, spec. Blue line the one and spec. Sentang the other.
Personally, I had three different fish all called “Blue line” already, all coming from the trade business. One had long light blue ventrals, with long filaments nearly white, others had ventrals with short blueish filaments, both very beautiful fish but decisively different. And the third had some brownish-failtly reddish tinge in the caudal, equally nice. And additionally spec. Sentang, which always was less colourful, a bit greenish or brownish. less glamourous, with less sparkling blue markings.
Obvioulsly, the traders are not interested in clearing that up. They even hide to locations, and it is the locations that ate the pathways to better identification. Horst Linke told me that the catchers who earn a cent for ten fish throw the fisg from the next river into the box with the fish from the first if there is place left. Nobody cares to distinguish if the fish are as similar as bintan-variants are.
But, although it is unclear what they are and the experts are angry and grumble at this practice, the trade continues to name them “blue line”. Apart from the fact that the mixture of fish caught in different river systems is definitely wrong, we cannot – at present – hope to reveal the “right identity” behind the so-called Blue lines. To all our knowledge all of them come from Sumatra and there is never a harveyi or a species from Kalimantan mixed between them. All we can do is to separate the different Blue lines and take them as Blue line 1, Blue line 2, and so on. As far as we know there is no well-known species behind, only (perhaps) bintan. And we can say the following: If there is at all a single species (or two) behind the label “Blue line”, all are from Jambi/Sumatra. That is for certain (at least as our present-day-knowledge is concerned). (This as a reply to Steff’s remark that there are so-called Blue lines available at Tokyo).
Two more remarks: Sverting, it is very unlikely that P. gunawani is mixed in, since we have never had Gunawani in recent years besides two personel non-profit imports of a few animals only. The are really stout, robust fish. There were two imports of them before in the nineties of the last century, and the fish were called Jambi 1 and Jambi 2, but the latter probably was not gunawani but spec. Sentang or “Blue line”. The former cerrainly was the fish that was recently called gunawani.
And Steff: nice linguistic plays. Yes, translation is the next source for misunderstandings …
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