Building up a new Tank – Questions

[Oliver]

Hi,

after being infected by the Paro-Virus in the German Forum http://www.aquaristikimdetail.net, I am building up a new Tank. Not knowing which species in particular will be bred, I have some questions about the Tank.

First of all: I found a nice root with something like a cave, but don’t know either if the cave is to big, nor if it is to small.
http://gehdanken.bplaced.net/Bilderse/bearbeitet.jpg
I know, the picture is not that good, but I think it illustrates the Dimension. Just behind the place where the measuring tape dips, the “cave” still continues about 5 cm in depth and about 5 cm in diameter.

Second one: After reading the Thread of Matthias “…Bodengrund…” i realized that the gravel is too light, or does it depend on the light, too? The Tank is illuminated by one LED-Stripe with about 0.3 W, so its really dark in there. But I don’t want to frighten the Paros…

Thats all for the moment, thanks in advance,

Oliver

[Peter Finke]

Oliver, a short reply:

1. The cave – yes, the photo is really bad, I hope to identify it correctly – is totally improper for Paros. It is a) too big. Paros prefer small caves. Mostly the smallest available are best. There are caves for small catfish on the market with openings of two or at most three centimeters that are conveniant; the smallest species (ornaticauda and parvulus) like them even smaller (opening 1 to 1,5 cm). The darker it is inside the better. Take a torch for inspection.
2. The most important part of the cave is b) the roof because the eggs are placed there. The roof therefore must be quite horizontal to prevent the eggs from gliding out. I don’t think your cave will match these conditions.
3. The colour of the gravel is of minor importance. Dark gravel is sometimes better, but we have many examples of Paros successfully breeding in tanks wirh light gravel.
4. More important is to use leaves on the ground and good wood from bogs. You don’t need a thick layer of gravel because a tank with a pH of 5 or 4 will tolerate only a few plants. My tanks have a layer of gravel of less than one cm.

[Author]

Posts