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Hi all,
I’m in the process of setting up a breeding tank (25 litres) for my Paros. I normally like to have a little microfauna in all my tanks, to help with clean-up and as a supplementary food source, but does anyone know if shrimp (Neocaridinia sp), amphipods (Hyallela azteca) or ostracods might impact breeding success through egg/larvae predation, or will the Paros defend their spawn sufficiently?
Thanks,
TomHello,
I tried a lot of different shrimp in Parosphromenus-tanks but only Caridina parvidentata grew well. So all what I say is connected to that species.
I never felt good with shrimp in a breeding aquarium, but I have a common tank in which they do their cleaning job and donate a snack from time to time (their fry). I had a lot of young Parosphromenus in that tank and Betta, too. I think young Paros better hide as Betta so I think it is possible to keep them together.
But I used a 160L tank and a lot of plants within, so you may try but keep an eye expecially to the early fry.
Good luck!
[quote=”BigTom” post=752](…) I normally like to have a little microfauna in all my tanks, to help with clean-up and as a supplementary food source, but does anyone know if shrimp (Neocaridinia sp), amphipods (Hyallela azteca) or ostracods might impact breeding success through egg/larvae predation, or will the Paros defend their spawn sufficiently? (…) Tom[/quote]
Tom, I can fully comply with Bennie. In fact, I received C. parvidentata from him, all what he says is right. Other species mostly have problems with the water values in blackwater aquaria; obviously we have up to the present day not the species of shrimps that live in those waters. (For there are shrimps living, there offspring certainly represent a large part of the Paro’s diets. And the many shrimp-specialist we have today follwing the “nano-fashion” only think of their pets and cultivate them in tap water. They are nearly of no help to us).
Bennie stresses the fact that the adult Paros and their growing offspring feed on the offspring of C. parvidentata, but we are a bit unsure to which extent the adult shrimps feed on or at least molest the offspring of the licorice. This is a typical aquarium-problem; in nature nobody cares. But if one is on the trip to breed his rare fish he should – to my experience – leave Caridinas aside. The same holds for the small Hyallela. You could feed your adult fish some semigrown offspring of the shrimps; that would certainly stimulate their breeding capacities, but a breeding tank is not a fine community tank. It’s a tank with a clear destiny: to create offspring, either of your fish or of your shrimps. You should decide what you want.
Bigger and more beautiful tanks that try to simulate natural conditions to a greater extent are without doubt very attractive (see your own “bucket of mud” and all of our reactions to it) to all of us, and it is a good thing to see such a wonderful example set up by someone who thinks aesthetically and biologically. But it’s not the first “duty” of a friend of Parosphromenus. That is breeding, for we cannot be sure how long we still can import those rare species’. Even the hype of spec. Sentang seems to indicate that there are last productive habitats of that form on Sumatra to be expoited now, but that hype will end when they are destroyed (just as the hype of “blue line” has ended before or the greater quantities of rubrimontis, alfredi or tweedie even before in western Malaysia). Therefore breeding is the first thing a Paro-friend should learn. One can set-up such a wonderful tank like the “bucket” when one has many self-produced young of the rare fish, and there you can include the shrimps, of course. But I should give the advice not to do so in the small breeding tank. (At least, it’s my opinion).
Hello,
let me hook up to your theme with another question:
Would it be recommended to place some snails into the tank, if some sand has been used as substrate? Can snails live in that specific water?
Hi Sylvia,
I don’t think, that there is any sort of snail, that is able to cope with that soft and acidic water. All the snails (the most common ones like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planorbarius_corneus etc.), that came into my tanks along with the plants, became more transparent and smaller from one generation to another. Finally, there weren’t any left. Of course, they need lime for their shells which is completely absent, and not stable, in our tanks.
Last week I’ve visited a friend, who is using Asellus aquaticus in the tanks for raising the fry. They don’t seem to be a threat to the eggs and the fry, but they eat dead artemia and unfertilised eggs that would otherwise moulder.
Of course, adult Paros eat up the Asellus.I think, this could be worth a try.
Greetings,
MartinHi, all paro-friends
Asella do live in my paro tanks. The european one. They don’t breed because they need winter conditions for that, but do their work as cleaners, and live long although I seldom see them but for I change the tank, remove wood, leaves and so on. They don’t damage fish or eggs. They are too tough and big to be eaten.
Surprisingly, I have snails too, Melanoïdes tuberculata. This species is wiped out when ph is extremly weak, but can stand in most of my tank about ph 5 or more. No damage.
Physa (I don’t know if I have european species which invades with wild food or exotics) is sometimes here too.
I always “seed” my tanks with daphnia and wild plankton before I set the fishes, and regularly in summer. daphnia don’t stand long and don’t breed.
Greetings,
Hugues, from France
Hello all,
that sounds interesting, thank you both for that information. Now I have to find out where I can get some of those Asellas.
Have a nice day,
Hi Sylvia and Hugues,
Hugues, do you mean Asellus aquaticus (waterlouse, Wasserassel)? This species occurs in every pond. Sylvia, you can easily catch it under leaves and stones in shallow water.
greetings,
PatrickHi,
Yes, I mean Asellus aquaticus. You have to catch the animals and only them, or to have them by a live food supplier, because you must care not to bring dangerous planaria (Polycoelis) or hydra with the stones, the wood or the leaves, that are deadly for eggs and/or jungfishes.
There is a good live food breeder in elsass (http://www.aqualiment.com/v2/), but the web pages are in french, and I don’t know if they send parcels to germany.There is another freshwater invertebrate species, “shrimp”, which could live in our tanks, the gammarus, but it can bring fish diseases and I never succeed to let him live long or to breed in warm water tanks, and it’s not so good a cleaner as the asellus. Asellus are not very good algae browser, but “work” the dead leaves and so on, so that it could be he decompose by other cleaners like snails and they clean rest of food too.
Hugues
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