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Good Morning,
I think my experiences might be helpful – in one or the other way.
Yesterday I received new fish from an experienced paro breeder. The fish (1,1 P. cf. rubrimontis “Mimbon 2008”, 1,1 Betta hendra and 1,0 P. pahuensis) were sent via a shipper who is, among others, specialized in shipping living animals. The fish had been fetched from the breeder almost accurately 24 hours before.
Unpacking the parcel, I realized that something must have gone completely wrong: The bags with the fish seemed icy cold, the pahuensis-male was definitely dead. The two rubrimontis were lying on their sides, motionless, showing only minimal signs of life (a slight movement of the pectorals, if you looked real closely).
The Betta pair was behaving completely normal (!).
I measured the temperature of the transport water – it was barely 14°C (about 57°F).Because the rubrimontis admittedly seemed to be dying, but were still alive, I decided to have a try and let the water come to room temperature very slowly. I kept the fish in a bowl for about 4 hours, beginning to add water from their new tank after about half an hour, and adding more water in small amounts very slowly every half hour or so. After about one hour the male tried to raise in an upright position from time to time, the female kept lying at her side, but frequently moved her pectorals. Over the period of the next three hours the fish slowly recovered – first the male hid beneath a beech leaf I always offer as a shelter when accommodating new fish. The female needed much more time. But finally both seemed to be fit to move into their new tank.
And this morning I have seen them both, looking healthy, quietly swimming around, the male showing colours and even examining the small cave. First pictures in a new thread.I am not sure what happend during shipping – if maybe the parcels were exposed to the cold night temperatures (about -4°C) or if the heat pack didn’t work as it should. Or maybe both …. I must admit that this is definitely what I expect to be avoided when a shipping specialist is engaged to transport living animals. That’s what you pay for – and not too little!
But I didn’t want to complain about the shipment (even though it is good to know that this may happen – even with a special animal shipper).
I wanted to show that it is possible – against all hopes – to “reanimate” fish that you already gave up for lost.What I found rather interesting is that the Betta were totally unimpressed by the low temperatures. Betta hendra comes from the same habitats as the paros – why were they not even slightly affected at all? Whereas fish of two paro species died or nearly died?
And because this is an undetermined thread I allow myself to post pictures of fish which are no paros 😉 ………………. Betta hendra pair:
male:
female:
The difference in tolerance is indeed very interesting. To my experience, bot paros and bettas are quite tolerant to suboptimal conditions, although coccina-group bettas seem to be more susceptive to stressy environments like badly furnished tanks, whereas paros seem less content with distubances like being moved. My coccina-group bettas (I have hendra and uberis) are the most relaxed fish I know, and tolerate everything I do in the tank without even swimming away. I could easily grab them with my hand.
Given enough hiding places, they don’t seem to care much about their environment. I haven’t noticed any difference in behaviour or colouration at different temperatures or pH-values.I can’t really say why they were so unimpressed by the low temperature, but I find it interesting. I’m going to pull out the heater in some tanks here, to see what happens at 18 degrees.
Hello Stefanie, – I think it is very helpful what you are writing in the thread, – about how it was possible to ‘save’ the two fish that showed so little life, – thats very very good to hear.
I hope you find out what went wrong, though I realize that can be difficult. But many things can happen during transport that can cause a too stressfull situation for the fishes, – other than cold also.
And by the way, thank you for showing those photos of the betta hendra, – wow, that is a beutiful little fish.
I just yesterday could not resist the temptation of buying 4 betta coccina when I accidentially passed them in a shop. I went out shopping for clothes, but I came back with four b.coccina.🙂 I have been looking for them for some time though, so it wasnt entirely impulsive. They are at the moment settling slowly in a small tank. My plan is to mix them into my bigger (surplus) linkei tank. I have tried this before, and it seemed to work well.
[quote=”helene” post=2730]
I just yesterday could not resist the temptation of buying 4 betta coccina when I accidentially passed them in a shop. I went out shopping for clothes, but I came back with four b.coccina.
[/quote]How likeable!! 🙂
Oh, yes, coccina would also be hard for me to resist. And brownorum……….. But my first aim is to find a male for my lonely Betta persephone-female, whose male died when I was in hospital.
I am not quite sure if it might have been stress that killed him. It was my first try to keep paros and Betta together – they lived in a tank with the P. pahuensis pair, 30 liter, with rampantly growing floating plants on the surface. The males began to argue when I went to hospital, and I lost both males while both females stayed healthy and well. This leads me to rather keep Paros and Betta separately at the moment ………. though I may be wrong and interspecific/-generic stress was not even the reason.I had betta uberis once together with p. quiendecim in a 60 liter, – and I am thinking about doing the same now with a group of linkei’s.
I have 2 breeding pairs seperated, and then the group in the 60 liter is fry of these. I want to concentrate breeding with the two pairs and not encourage offspring in the bigger tank because theres one male in there with a split tail. Cant really get him out, but would prefer not to have off spring by him.
And the uberis went well in such a big tank, – theres some areas with leaves and a bit of peat, – and they loved it.But for now, I keep the coccinas seperate, just want to get to know their temperament.
I am afraid the b.hendra is one I need to have sometime also 🙂 …
I should also, 🙂 … have facebook connection with mr. Tommy Hendra from which the fish has got its name. So …. a must in the future I think. :whistle:Stefanie, I’m glad to read that your new betta and paro-pairs have survived their unlucky travel. They are both rare, and beautifull as well.
Your experience reminds me of a situation that occurred with my 60l. tank last week.
It’s habitants, 5 P. bintan were schooling together. I wondered why they were acting so peacefully. Not really their style, as they used to behave very territorial.The next evening, they still moved together in group, along the front glass. I became suspicious as they didn’t show any interest when I offered them artemia for supper. I started checking the water quality. This way, I found out that the heater didn’t function any more. The temperature had dropped to 17-18 degrees. A spare heater helped to solve the problem. I’ve already bought a new replacement heater.
Paros and coccina-group bettas are the perfect match, if one wants keep paros with other fish for whatever reason. I do combine my bettas with bigger, stronger paros like quindecim[i] and [i]bintan.
However, I think 30 liter is way to small for this combination or for multiple males! The extra stress caused by lack of space will harm them or increase aggression. I’d recommend not keeping Betta in tanks smaller than 60cm (54L), especially when keeping two or more males.I ordered Betta channoides last winter. They arrived over a distance of 180km via specialized transport with heat pack in a Styrobox. Water temperature was around 16°C and both fish were dead. A heat pack seems useless to me if the transporter is not heated and the temperature is below 5°C… The transport company was “specialized” but the first question the driver told to me was: do fish really survive such transports?
Last Sunday I transported 8 Sphaerichtys selatanensis in my heated car in a “Kühltasche” cooling bag? without any problems over a distance of 400km.
I never use transport companies again to deliver fish!
[quote=”PatrickG” post=2736]
I never use transport companies again to deliver fish![/quote]Thank you, Patrick, for your post. That’s exactly what I thought ………….. If a transport of living fish again should be necessary, I will try a ridesharing offer. We have a ridesharing center for animals here in Germany: Private persons which regularly drive certain routes announce their travel times and offer a ride for parcels with living animals (some even for cats and dogs). That’s the same risk for the animals as being fetched by oneself. I have no experience with it yet, but to me it sounds worth a try.
There’s just one thing concerning the reliability of heat packs: I am not sure whether the failure in warming the parcel adequately might be due to wrong usage.
I experienced heat packs to be cold when unpacking a parcel, but after kneading and exposing them to air they began to give off heat.
It’s necessary to activate a heat pack by kneading it – and it’s unalterable to care for sufficient air supply while packed inside the parcel. It’s a physical reaction that produces warmth, it works through oxidation. If the heat pack is wrapped or enclosed too tightly it doesn’t work. It’s a balancing act between keeping the greatest heat away from direct contact to the plastic bags and still not wrapping the heat pack so tight that it is cut off from oxygen supply.
Looking for a method to safely use heat packs I found the advice to take an egg carton (those molded ones made from paper pulp, take the size made for ten eggs), tear off one mold, put the activated heat pack in, close it and place it upright in between the plastic bags. It is said to cause a stack effect, the heat pack gets enough air to work, and the egg carton guarantees a safe distance from the plastic bags.
I haven’t tried it, but it sounds plausible to me.
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