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What’s about the gen-pool?
The question is justified, but the issue is overrated, too.
Since 2005, some breeders exchange individuals of secured identity (location!) at meetings. Even the exchange of of specimens of the same stock the have been grown at different places with different breeders add a certain amount of security. At the first international meeting that we shall organize at Hamburg 2015 there is a possibility to do this again. But identity not only of species but of its original location must be certain beforehand. Otherwise the procedure is likely to be contraproductive.
One could do this with commercially traded fish, too, although there is nearly never a given locality. But it is to be recommended with secure species determination only. That means, all Sumatranian bintan-variants should be excluded. For linkei or filamentosus or ornaticauda it could be worthwhile, not for bintan-types.
On the other hand the following is to be taken serious: The issue is overrated. What we do, is artificial breeding, i.e. we can, should and do exclude aberrant or ill young individuals from further breeding anyway. In this respect the issue is blown-up to a huge problem, but it exists in nature only if the real gen-pool has become very small. There is nobody who controls the reproduction; this is quite different in our case. Most cases of complaints about genetic defects in breeding fish are due to mistakes of the breeder. He is responsible; the issue of the “too small gen-pool” is mostly an excuse for a bad care and conditions not provided as optimal as possible.
See the following example which is really impressive: There was only once an import of P. quindecim. All quindecim we have all over the world refer to this import. There is one German breeder, Bernhard Lukiewski from Berlin, who since the breeds quindecim in high numbers in the twentieth or so generation. He does it with excellent care, feeding and knowledge. He never observed any signs of degeneration in his fish. The point is important for natural stocks, but highly overrated for aquaristic ones. Nearly all amounts to the skills and consciousness of us, the breeders.
Thank you for the competent answer!
Yes, the example with the quindecim is very impressive!And, by the way I didn’t think about the expert breeders, I thought about beginners as me, who have two or four fish, and begin to give the offspring away, the best by the project distribution.
Comparing with men and dogs, I was thinking that then it would be nececary to take for example a male from one small stock and a female from another small stock….
But implied, that we (the beginners, the experts know anyway!) take a good care for our fish and don’t set together ill fish-parents, it’s good to hear that it’s already proved, that also a small aquaristic population can stay healthy! 🙂
With my former fish from the “hobby” I always had to look out, for example with the good old guppies from my friend, we always look out to get “fresh blood” so everybody is astonished, that we always have healthy offspring …
Getting the fish to G.B.,Norway, U.S. What comes to my mind is that this could be done pretty much the same way as the whole companies do it. We would just need a little (or quite some, depending on point of view)organisation. Once in a while we would need to make public (for the members of P-P or possibly other Labyrinth fish assotiatons)offer of available Paros and have someone for each of the specific countries to collect the demans. Than the fish would be packed in Gordon breathing bags one by one(Special bags made of a foil that is able to let carbon dioxide out and oxygen in. You only put in enough water for the fish to have a little space. Its perfectly safe as you can pack each individiual separately and the water is not moving nearly as much as with air so it is even less stresfull). And a big styro box would be sent by plane. This way you could send at least 100 Paros for one cargo cost and make shipments effective. For those who are scared to send fish. Please be aware that if you prepare it well (packing) and you give the boxes to cargo company on the airport, you exactly know how many hours this is going to take. Of course there may be problems if the shipment is send wrong way and ends up delayed, but I have seen that done many times with fish from SA and Asia and I was unpacking the fish myself. If you send healthy a and properly starved fish, with todays heatpacks its really ok. So if we would do this lets say every 1/2 year, it could work fine. Or if demands were colected permanently, it could be done every time the box would be full. Of course there would have to be someone on each end who would be willing to pack and send or pick up and resend the fish. Single shipments of couple fish will be always possible by parcels, but it is and will always be expansive. If you buy a pair of wild Bettas from some of the trans-shippers that import the fish from Asia to you, you would mostly pay like 70 USD and more than 1/2 of it is the shipping costs. I think we have to accept that.
As this way, no addresses would be revealed, only stocks + it would be an efficient way to get Paros to the other continents too.
That’s all right, but it must organize someone to send Paros there are enough, but who wants to make it ?. It takes a big investment to containers to firstonce enough Paros.
One more note to “we have no control,” Of course, we rarely know who gets the Paros we send, but that’s not the point either. We have, at least I, always before contact with the customer and also large amounts of Paros are never given, 3,4,5 couples maybe. Can, it’s mostly about spreading Paros, buy they are rare, and if no one knows exactly where they come from. This is for most who are interested in Paros, the only way to get to fish.But, Bernd, – I appreciate what you say, but it will in my view be difficult to expand to other areas than mainly Germany if we want to continue in same way as always.
I think it is a natural consequense of the Project itself, that more people become interested, wants to become involved, – this is what the Project is also seeking, – and then some things might have to change.
Perhaps we could involve more people in ‘active roles’ in the Project by having a ‘resource’ person in each important area, such as UK, France or South Europe, Scandinavia, East Europe etc..
The distribution service could be one central coordinator + more resource people in different areas, who were responsible for contacts with people looking for fish, or selling fish. This way for example people in UK might contact one person, who would then maybe once every half year help organize a collective ‘smaller’ import from Germany or whereever.
And as Pavel says, sending a bit larger quantities is quite possible. But this is not possible for individuals.
Of course I am not speeking for massive ‘exports’ of paros, thats why the ‘resource’ person should of course be a dedicated member here and be responsible for personal contacts and all that.
This is just an idea and a thought.In my opinion a distribution based on contact persons who arrange an exchange of fish doesn’t work.
I can only speak about my own experience here at the Paro project and in other aquaristic forums. I tried to get paros via the distribution contact here in this project. I don’t want to insult those persons who are willing to make efforts to help other fish enthusiasts get the species they want. I appreciate their dedication – but I think they are as overloaded with this task as I would be myself.
My experience is that you have to wait very long until you even get an answer to your request. Several times it took weeks until I got response. Then you get maybe one email-address or phone number – without any hint about the species the contact person keeps and is maybe willing to sell. If this doesn’t lead to an exchange of fish – you recoil from starting the same procedure again to maybe get another breeder’s address.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to offend the (different) persons who were kind enough to assume this task. But I think this distribution method doesn’t work. It doesn’t work in Germany – and it will certainly not work transnational.I suggest to create a “Fish exchange” topic in this forum in each geographical category. This topic should only be visible for registered members of the project – after the log-in. Here everybody who seeks or offers paros can post his offer/request. According to my experience it works very well to surmount transport difficulties once you have personal contact.
This forum topic would allow every paro project member to search for the species he wants or to offer those he can give away himself. No work for anyone else to do – just those persons who are personally interested. And an exclusion of every Tom, Dick and Harry who is not interested enough to join the project as an official member.I definitely can’t see any advantage in interposing a contact person. I plead for direct contact between those who are personally concerned – and no additional work for a third party who neither knows one of the prospects nor is involved personally.
Thank you Stefanie, I think its good to hear what peoples actual experience is with how it has worked in the past. I agree, it is an important area to improve.
Your suggestion of a geographically differentiated exchange forum open for registered members only is worthwhile to be dicussed. It is possible that this will be used by “normal” Paro-aquarists who need a male of this or female of that species or want to offer their 10 young nagyi or 20 young filamentosus. We shall do so at the meeting of the steering group in Hamburg in the beginning of September.
But your opinion about distribution in general is far from reality. We had a very good distribution manager in the first years who was communicating fast, friendly and with pleasure. But when he had to give up this function because of illness we unfortunately chose the wrong person to succed him. He was eager to get this function this but came out as lazy and not interested at all. Unfortunately, it needed time to realize this and fire him to hell.
The point is not this function, but the mentality of the good Paro breeders whom we have in Germany and some other countries. Most of them will not use the means that you suggest. It will probably be used by the occasional breeder who wants to see his offspring in good hands or is intested in the rather well-spread species (whom you think of, and that is OK), but we must have a constant contact to the specalist breeders with many species und rare species. I think their mentality to be wrong and told them more than once, but it did not change their minds. They dislike communication and forums; that’s stupid, but it’s reality. Bernd is an exception, or have you seen here other good breeders offer their fish? Unfortunately not. To hold them in our distribution boat you need a good internal communicator, who is eager to actualize the available offspring at different places and holds contact to the imprtant breeders nearly constantly; as we had one formerly, and not such an ill-suited person we had lately, unfortunately.
So, a combination of several methods seems to fit the needs better than one method only. We shall discuss it.
Thank you, Peter, for your answer.
Of course I wasn’t aware of these nuisances in the background ………. I had only short contact to the first contact person you mentioned, before he became ill – and it’s him whom I owe all my paros which I got from one single breeder (the only successful contact I got via the distribution of the paro project).
My experience with the second person was as you described – I didn’t dare to say it as explicit as you did now, you having much more background informations than I have.I understand the importance of this contact person you describe – so if certain breeders need to be treated with velvet gloves and don’t want to mix with ordinary people – ok, to each their own. I hope the project will find another convenient and sociable person who is able to fulfill this special task with the instinct required.
But, yes – for us simple folks 😉 – please discuss the possibility of establishing an exchange topic for project members at this forum.
One thing I would like to say: No, speaking for me – we are not only interested in the widespread, more common species. But being excluded from contacts to the “special breeders” we are doomed to get only the common species (which are offered by the commercial trade sometimes). It’s one aspect – to distribute your own (common) offspring into good hands. But speaking for me – I now have all the species offered by this one single breeder I mentioned above. And I was not able to get any further contact to other breeders via the project’s distribution – so I am not able to get other species than those commercially traded. The fact that I have no rare species doesn’t mean that I don’t want them ………. But the way it is now at the project, “common people” are as good as excluded from the exchange of rarer species.
And I think this has contra-productive effects to the declared aims of the project.I agree that starting an exchange thread for small amount of fish between the hobbyists is probably not a problem and could work well. But I think that solving of how to get rare Paros to countries where no or very little personal imports have been done in the past is very important or else these countries would pretty much depend on the trade only. I agree that the procedure that I sugeested would take effort and depending on the size of the shipment some space for storing the bags for 2-3 days(seems to me like the worst case) before the whole shipment is collected and dispatched, but on the other hand it would most easily solve the distribution to the other countries far from Germany or even other continents + it gives us the opportunity to get rid of (forgive me that expression :))larger number of animals from single breaders.
Just a short statement for 2014: My emails where all answered at once, and I got my new Paros in a very friendly, trustful and reliably way from the breeder, with help from his friends!
And I was offered a long list of Paro species, with advice, which species would be best for beginners!
Thank you all!It’s not my way of thinking to divide Paro friends into two categories; it’s the experience with many of the good breeders who need to be taken – as you put it – “with velvet gloves”. It’s a pity, but it’s reality. They do not behave rational, but they are as they are. Therefore we can try something similar to what you suggest, but i am pretty sure we need a communication expert for that sensitive communication nevertheless. Until now we hav not found someone.
The other point that Deepin’ peat mentions – transfer of Paros to other countries – will again be discussed in Hamburg, too. In principle, the thing is easily to be solved: There are companies which have specialized in the animal transportation business, but … it’s a matter of money. You can get a perfect solution but then one fish will cost 10 Euros or more. Nobody wll pay this. And you cannot compare this with the normal transport of ornamental fish from wholesalers in one county to partners in another: Either, there are people willing to pay (say with special Discus or large garden pond fish), or there is a huge loss of small mobile, oxygen demanding fish calculated. An sometimes it even struck Paros: I shall always remember te sight of 800 P. ornaticauda with 400 dead by arrival already; 300 followed during the next days. With many fish transports this is quite normal. That’s one reason why I hate that business and work for the private solution.
Dorothee, – this is because we had actually just realized that things weren’t working with the previous distribution.
I think that a mix of more ways could be good, – it would be easy to make a forum category suited to this, and even to make it locked or only for a definite group – and there could moderators (maybe more than one) who could attend to it. Its just a decision to be made.
Again, on the other issue of transport, – yes, its too expensive for one individual, – but thats why I was thinking, it should be possible to connect people who live in the same area, and they might agree together on getting more fish at the same time.
I think that even if we get close to 10 Euros for one fish it is not a problem. I would guess in Germany and everywhere else in western Europe any common Apistogramma would be the same price or more and most people would buy 1-2 pairs of Paros so I would not be scared that people who look for Paros as such would not pay that price for healthy and nice fish without risking issues with weakened and damaged specimens from direct imports.
[quote=”Peter Finke” post=3735] An sometimes it even struck Paros: I shall always remember te sight of 800 P. ornaticauda with 400 dead by arrival already; 300 followed during the next days. With many fish transports this is quite normal. That’s one reason why I hate that business and work for the private solution.[/quote]
Sorry Peter, forgot about this. That is why I was suggesting someone from the P_P project doing this and packing the fish one by one in those special bags. Then in the case that one fish dies in the bag, no other specimens are harmed by water polution by dead animals in the bag. We also have to keep in mind that we are dealing with healthy fish in very good condition and therefore such cases would be very rare. The most important thing is that we do not put dozens of fish in one bag.
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