forming pairs

[Bernd Bussler]

No Panic, that’s ok, I have never seen the killed themselves Paros.
You’d need to get used to each other for a while. Just let them in peace it will come.

[Pavel Chaloupka]

Now that the other female has places to hide, its quite ok. She just has to stay hidden. I will definitely leave them alone until there is a clutch in there. I have enough tanks and if the clutch will develop, I was planning to move the adults to another tank so if she will be still stressed and parsued I will move the pair in some other tank. I hope to have some other species of paros next week so I could set up two small tanks for breeding each species and two bigger tanks for housing the rest of the groups at least as long as I built more breeding tanks.

[Pavel Chaloupka]

So, now I have quite a lot freeswimming fry from the first clutch in the tank with trio. They stay close to cover but it seems, that with the very dark water and so many leaves and plants, they do not hide that much. They are very lively and actively hunting some organisms on the leaf litter. BUT of course the smaller female is hunting them. It looks like she is not very succesful untill now, they seem to be very fast and aware of danger, but still I am not happy about it and I feel somewhat emotionaly interested 😀 These are my first Paro fry. I was planning to remove the trio but when I checked the cave, there is of course another clutch in there. I also have another clutch from other pair developing for about 4 days and there may be another one in the third tank, becouse the male never shows up for feeding and just sometimes I can see him sticking the head out of the leaves at the back of the tank. It is evident that production of clutches is not a problem, so I am thinking about moving the male from the trio with his cave to another tank and see if he is able to hold the clutch anyways, becouse the first freeswimming fry is more valueble than the new clutch. What are your opinions? Or would you rather try and just move the breeders and try to raise the clucth without a male?

[helene schoubye]

I think I would leave the clutch and leave the male in there untill the fry has gone, and then take him out. But I would probably take out the females now.
But then again, – to me it does sound like you are having quite a good success with breeding, so you will soon have many 🙂
And for the experience, it is also interesting to see if he is able to hold on to caring for the eggs ?
I have never tried to move a breeding male

[Pavel Chaloupka]

Taking out females sounds like the most reasonable option. I have not seen the mother to hunt the fry yet, but I can try leaving the parents in there in one of the other tanks and now just go for the safe way with what looks to be very lively fry from the strongest male and female I have. The clutch in there is worth saving and I should leave the male in there. Than I will probably put together another trio but use a bigger tank, it seems like the parsued female is kind of slim and still stressed out. I dont know how big tanks Bernd uses for such a set-up, but 12 liters may be to small. I hoped that making the tanks 35 cm long will help a bit, if like double the size is needed, it will not help.

[Bernd Bussler]

If enough plants and leaves to hide are present, enough hatchlings will survive. I do it a little differently. All my caves are visible,
the eggs are white and the hatched larvae even when the larvae color from white to dark I take the cave with the larvae out and put them in an empty aquarium. So I can feed the pups targeted. My aquariums are 50x25x20 cm tall, so about 25 L content

[Pavel Chaloupka]

Thanks very much Bernd, I took away the females today, I think for the last time 😀 Taking out the larvae seems like the absolutely best option for any further care and for the option to not stress the parents and dismount the tanks all time. I am just wondering if labyrinth fish have some kind of imprinting of parental care and other behavior from parents for example like cichlids have? Or better question. Have you experienced artifically raised fish, especially males, be worse parents sometimes? Of course this question goes to everyone else too. As my imported Paros, even though these are their first spawns, seem to be great parents so far. Males present a great care for the first try and females are very responsibly guarding the teritory around the tank. It would be sad to ruin it with intensive methods like it has been done to other species over the decades of mass production. But if its not the problem, taking out larvae before they swim out of the cave seems to be great option. I have checked the clutches the newer clucthes and it seems this takes cca 4 days, so it should be even soon enough to not get in to any new eggs in the cave problem.

[Bernd Bussler]

I do not think the Paros have a spawning embossing. I’ve been doing this for years and Parogenerationen way. Besides, you do not keep interrupting the brood, in the moment in which the larvae darken they float freely and require no more brood care. I have tried several times to erbrüten eggs or white larvae separately, which I did not succeed. And just so it is also possible Paros to breed in larger quantities. I think it has to do with the water quality if eggs are eaten or not and even with my eggs are often eaten, who have spawned many times together as well as couples. In addition, if you have more than a girl with a man you it can happen that are between the lavas have some new eggs and larvae can be recovered not without destroying the eggs.

[Pavel Chaloupka]

Ok, than going for larvae separation right after they get pigmented is clearly best. I already isolated what seems to be nicely multiplying Rotifera culture from one of the tanks, so hopefully I will have that culture next time. Rising the fry should be much easier for first couple days with this. It is evident that they are smaller than usual Brachionus but I was lazy to pull out a microscope so far and try to identify them.
Anyway thanks for help Bernd, now I probably know all the transferable information I needed and the time for experience is coming 🙂

[Peter Finke]

I don’t know of any complications or habitual deficiencies of Paros which were raised separately without parents natural care for a brood is not as much developed than with many cichlids. It’s rather an archaic kind of a care, restricted to the very first 10 days from laying the eggs till the darkening of the larvae, as Bernd said.

There are a few people in Germany only who managed to get a clutch develop without the caring father; one is our pioneer breeder Günther Kopic. But he describes the method as rather tricky and difficult, since you have to substitute the missing male by hand-care yourself, in picking out each individual egg that is liable to infest others with funghi. He did this for several days three or four times a day, and even this was impossible without the use of funghicides. The father’s care is the most effective one can imagine; but when the larvae get dark, it ends or is at least no longer necessary.

By the way, I have several times raised about fifty young Paros for about 8 weeks in 12-liter-tanks with their parents present. But it depends on the individual fish; often Paros are very tolerant against their small young, but – I regret to say – often they are not.

[Pavel Chaloupka]

Thank you very much for contribution Peter. That makes perfect sence.

[Author]

Posts