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Hello, I would like to share my experience with my Parosphromenus Sp. “bintan” – most common paros these days, I think.. (if we could say “common” in Paro-aquaristic world ). I have my paros 7 months by now and I may say that keeping them it isn’t a problem, At the beginning I was worry about food, water quality, and other things. Now I have established cultures of live food ( daphnia and micro worms) and also I’m buying glassworms every 2 weeks and keep them in fridge – they could stay alive even more then 2 weeks. So, feeding paros is now pure pleasure Water quality is also no problem because of low quantity of fish in aquarium and also because of small portion of live food they get. I was worry about water temperature without heater in aquarium, this is no problem too – temperature is stable around 23 degrees. I watched how my paros grew well and they finally spawned. And in this matter I have my first little success
I often saw males and females in breeding coloration , I saw moment when female swim into caves with males but because those caves were always build from leafs laying close to the bottom I was unable to see what’s going on in that caves. I two cases I saw that males are staying about week close or in that caves after the spawn , but nothing happend after that week . I didn’t see any of larvae or fry, I was frustrated and I decided to do something with this. I remember what Peter said about keeping Parosphromenus species – It is great that we keeping paros but we must remember that our goal is to breeding them.. I decided that I will try to breed my paros in special tank. I had some 10L tank established few months later ( it was for P. anjunganensis but finally I didn’t get them) . I moved pair from main tank and wait what’s happend. After a week since I moved them I saw male in breeding coloration. He “ fly” around female. I put into this breeding aqua black film container and set flat stones around and above it. I also put few leaves because there were no plants ( only one root swimming on the water surface). And were my paros spawned… under the leaf of course and I still didn’t had chance to see spawn or eggs. But when male become very agressive against female I remove her and wait few days. After that male start to swimm in whole aqua so, I move him to main aquarium. But after another few days I remove all leafs and very careful look for brood – there wasn’t any.. Probably he eat them.
Second time I changed the strategy, I put in to breeding aqua only 2 flat stones and container. Without any leavs. And a week ago I moved another pair ( my biggest male and also biggest female) to this aqua. Yesterday I saw that male start to “fly” around female and today I saw when female swimm into container! with male – finally I was able to watch whole spawn. And this is my first small success with paro I hope that this time I will have little paros… we will see
Best regards !Dear Marcin, I like your way of telling us your various attempts to get your fish propagated. Everybody who reads it can sympathize with your hopes, and I do hope with you that finally you will be lucky and succeed. I do not think that you did handle anything severely wrong, to the contrary: you did everything very well. But sometimes it nevertheless doesn’t work out as it was to do, because we are dealing with living creatures. So, it could be that your male cannot fertilize the eggs, often later on it will work, but not in the beginning. Our fish, if young, must learn quite a lot of things as all living beings have to. Jörg Vierke once publicized a nice little movie on Parosphromenus paludicola Wakaf Tapei showing that the pair only slowly learned to fix the eggs at the ceiling the cave.
So, let me recall some points in short that I think to be important:
– It’s easier to produce the first young licorice gouramis not in a rather empty tank but in tank with plants (including floatings plants) and a layer of leaves on the bottom, since the youngest fish have much cover there.
– Four or five leaves are not enough; they must form a cover on the ground. At least that enlarges the living-chances of the young fish in a tank with adults.
– It’s much more difficult to raise a clutch of eggs separately without the adult fish because the male’s care must be substituted somehow.
– There is a time of ten or twenty days in which young after having swum out of the cave are very hard to detect. In most cases I have not succeeded, but there were many of them.
– You can offer caves of nearly any kind at nearly any place in the tank. The small black film containers are favourites with the fish because of very good small measures are their darkness inside. The can float on the surface (perhaps at a side glass of the tank) and will readily by taken.
– But small caves from pottery at the ground are equally conveniant. Mostly, the smaller one are preferred to those with a rather big hollow.
– Absolutely essential is the absence of Calcium, at least to 95 or 98%. Otherwise the eggs will not develop. Other minerals are less important, but should be restricted to a very low level.
– The pH is less important, but since the lowest degree of a concentration of germs is to be strived at, the best means to regulate that is an acid pH. It should definitely be below 6.8; about 6.0 is not bad for the beginning. But it could be 4.0 or even lower.
– An important point is the feeding of the adults. But in this respect you do all what can be done. Glassworms are very good for producing females with a good fertility.
– At any rate you should be prepared with live food for the youngest fish: Rotatoriae are best, but Paramecium is possible, too. In an older tank with leaves and plants the young fish will find something for the first days, but then, at the latest when they are to be seen in the open water or at the surface, active feeding must begin.
– Last remark: There are species I would recommend to begin with (filamentosus, paludicola, linkei) and not fish from the bintan-group. But I know that if one has to take the fish from a pet shop, you cannot fulfill those wishes. And eventually, you will have success. I am sure.Hello, thank You for reply. I use this “empty” tank ( 10 L) only for breeding. I have ~100 L main tank for all my 7 parosphromenus and this tank is full of leaves. roots, coco shels and plants. So , if there are some young paros they should survive with any problems. But I didn’t see any of them yet. This 10L breeding tank is empty because I want to breed paros in place which I can see everything:) My water has 30-40 us conductivity and because of lot of organic matter it has pH around 5. Today I removed male and female from breeding aqua. Eggs are visible in the container stick to the little air bubbles. I moved parents in morning but on the evening I regretted it. Some little snails come to this container and dropped eggs dawn 🙁 – my question is , if I have a male – does he will protect eggs against snails? I removed snails and I will wait for larvae. But next time for sure I will leave male longer.
Best regards!Marcin, some remarks:
1. I should never try to breed licorice gouramis in a fully empty tank even without any surface plants. I use at least some javamoss and Ceratopteris at any case and leaves or peat on the bottom, and even some small roots, too. Mostly, that makes things easier.
2. You need not to see “everything”. You need to see everything happening in the cave. Place the cave in such a way that you have a good view in it using a torch.
3. It is very risky indeed to keep several species of Parosphromenus together in a community tank. If you don’t mean males only but females, too, I wonder if you would be able to select the “right” females if you want to breed a species. This keeping-together is possible in quite a small number of species only, but very hard if not impossible with the great majority, especially nearly all species (and other forms!) of the bintan-related forms with a rounded tail. We are not sure whether the males could achieve this at any rate; mind that we have no information on the closeness or distinctness of species (or subspecies?) so far. Such a community tank is only an alternative if you have a very well-chosen selection of forms that allow to recognize the females without doubt (or you have so many fish self-bred that you don’t need them fro breeding again). Otherwise the risk of producing hybrids is high. I hope that your hitherto failures are not due to that factor.
4. The caring males try to remove snails from the inside of their caves. They do not feed on them, but try to bite them away. But they don’t succeed in any case. The only thing one can say is: In breeding tanks there is no room for snails as long as there are eggs and larvae within the cave. At least one should try.
5. The caring male should be left as long as possible. It is possible but very difficult to raise eggs without the help of the male. It is impossible without use of effective chemical means against funghi. The males work very effectively in this respect. They will find and remove any bad single egg.
6. The male should (or could) be removed when the young leave the cave. This is not the same moment for all, it can differ from hours to one day. The young will swirl around within the cave a long time (days) before they leave. The father will put them back to the nest, at least he will try (but rather effectively).
7. The thing becomes difficult if the pair has spawned a second time shortly after the first; that happens. Then you have larvae and fresh eggs mingled together at the ceiling of the cave. Then it is best to leave the male at the place and give shelter to the young by the leaves on the bottom and the swimming plants at the surface. Many males (and females) don’t harm their young, but some do.
8. Extensive breeding is the best way to first successes (= leaving the pair in a highly structured breeding tank and feeding it with fresh small Artemia naupliae that could taken by the young, too). Intensibe breeding (= breeding without the permanent presence of the parents, breeding for quantity) is much more difficult. One should learn it, but later only.Hello, in this “main tank” I’m keeping only one species of Parosphromenus. this is what I agree too – not keep more then one paros in the same aqua. For second species ( which I will have in nearly future) I will manage second tank. I attached pictures of my breeding tank – it is not so “empty” – I have floating root on the surface and 2-3 leaves. Besides, this tank is situated behind wood sheet and it is not visible from the room. Paros have quite and peace – I’m moving this sheet only when I watch them. I attached pictures of main aqua and breeding aqua. Also picture of male attached. Greetings!
Hello, today is 6-th day after breeding and yesterday I saw larvaes in cave!!! 🙂 There were 6-7 of them ( maybe more but I can’t see other). Few eggs( only 2 or 3) were attacked by fungus but other hatched. Now I will wait until free swimming of fry and will start with feeding.
Greetings! 🙂Hello again, during last week I started to give little bit of microworms to my paro fry. I was able to see 2 of them ( now I understand why it is impossible to see fry in main tank – even in so empty tank like my breeding aqua it is very hard to see them and they have unique ability to disappear in second 🙂 ) I taked photo of one – very bad picture but caudal fin is visible. They have big, round stomach so, microworms are eaten:)
Martin, good, you have found one of them and managed to take a photograph. Show us more of this, if you find them …
But be careful with feeding microworms. They are very easy to grow, but they sink fastly to the bottom. If they decay in greater quantity they could pollute the water. Try to feed other food, too: Paramecium, Artemia. A very good food is the vinegar eels that look quite simmilar to microworms but live in vinegar. They are still a bit smaller than the microworms, still more easy to reproduce and keep for months, but must be filtered from their vinegar, of course before fed. The best advantage is that they don’t sink fastly to the bottom and live longer in the tank.Hello, Thank You for answer, I will try to do other pictures. I don’t have any substrate on the bottom. Microworms stays alive very long time ( I see them moving on the bottom) and I try to not put to many of them. Today morning I saw 3 of fry – they swimming and eating something (In my daphnia culture are many of very little “organisms” ( I really don’t know what is it) and I put them into my paro-fry aqua.
Martin,
Its so good to see someone keeping track of their experience in the way you have here.
Its really fascinating to see your set-up.
Thanks
Hello, I’m glad to hear this humike7 🙂 To continue this I take some photo of my fry. Now they have 17 days. I still give them microworms and this very little organisms from my daphnia culture. And what is most important I saw 6 of them, and who knows maybe there are more..( Finke’s rule:))
Wow! They look very small, and I imagine that it is not easy to visit them.
Thank you fo those nice pictures.
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