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Yes, Helene, I also think that they are not completely “new”. I wouldn’t have thought that they might be “months” old – one month or 6 weeks would be my estimation. But this is a deduction from the development of fry of my Badis singenensis: A species of a size similar to paros (about 4 cm), with a similar breeding behaviour (breeding in caves, the male cares for the eggs, the fry leave the cave within a few days, they then have the size of small white mosquito larvae, they are nearly invisible, hiding in the ground cover). These Badis fry reach the size now shown by my little paros within 4 to 6 weeks.
But you are experienced in breeding paros – in contrast to me. So if you say they may be months old, it will be right.The young paro I show on the pictures is the biggest. I have seen 3 young at a time – the others are noticeably smaller. This bigger one is swimming free, slowly moving through the plant roots hanging from the surface. The smaller ones are still mainly “ground dwellers”, hiding under leaves.
No, six weeks could be a good estimation, – I didnt mean months 🙂 .. but I wrote a couple of months – give and take a few weeks, so yes, six weeks it could well be, probably more likely than 8 weeks
PatrickG wrote a reply here, which I have moved to create a new topic.
You can find it here
https://parosphromenus-project.org/en/forum/4-Breeding/1436-size-and-age-of-young-paros.html
Some photos to show the development. I am able to distinguish 4 young, that’s the highest number I have seen together, and I claim to be able to tell 4 individuals apart.
Two are of the same size, one is slightly smaller, and the fourth is still very, very tiny.Here are the three bigger ones with their father:
And here you can compare one of the bigger ones to the “pipsqueak” (above):
The pipsqueak compared to mosquito larvae …..:
And the eyes of the little one (above) and it’s bigger brother/sister (below)
(Notice the pearl-white eye rim which already tiniest quindecim-fry show!)
They are growing fast ……….
Different sizes – different age?
For me again it’s a prominent character in quindecim: The shining pearl-white of the broad eye rim. I know too few paro species from my own experience to decide whether it’s a feature unique in quindecim, but those I know (nagyi, pahuensis, unidentified females) definitely don’t show this feature, their eye rim is only partially white. If it’s unique in quindecim, then it makes a reliable determination of females and even fry of quindecim among other species possible.
In practice it made it very easy for me to separate the quindecim female from the other females, when it accidentally got into the wrong tank.As I said – you can watch them growing from day to day. This brings me to the question: How long do you leave them with their parents, when do you catch them and put them in a separate tank? How many young paros do you keep together in one tank, and what size is the tank?
The tank they now live in with their parents is a 16-liter tank.Whow, arent they so cute 🙂 ..
I dont know about the eye rim, – I never thought about that, but you probably need to have quindecim to observe it, – but its interesting.I leave my fry sometimes in the tank with the grown up fish almost till they are the same size. And my tanks are 12 liters.
At the moment I have a 12 liter with p. harveyi – a couple and 6-8 fry – these are around 1-1.5 cm now, – these I will take out sometime soon, but it has been my experience that the bigger they are the better they will feel good about moving, – and then again – I have also moved really really small fry and they also did well.Some species – parvulus – I hesitate to move, had some eperience that they didnt like it, – but others – linkei – I once moved one by mistake, it was really small 🙂 .. and its fine and grown up today. But what I can say is that theres no real problem in leaving them in tank with the parents untill of course they will be chased too much by the grown ups. The ‘grown up’ pair might even have another nest and you can have fry in different sizes growing up.
Just want to show some pictures of how colourful the quindecim female can become if she is in a certain mood:
Today I watched something peculiar …….. I saw the female quindecim visiting a hollow bamboo cane, open on both ends, and saw her inside the tube constantly nibbling on the ceiling. It looked like caring for eggs …………… so I tried to see something with a torch (flashlight, for American readers 😉 ).
That’s what I saw:
What’s peculiar is the fact that I have never seen the male inside this bamboo cane. I moved the pair to their actual tank a few weeks ago, and since then the male is sitting under an arching leaf in the back of the tank, that’s his new cave.
So how can there be two freshly hatched young (according to the yolk sac) in this abandoned tube – obviously cared for by the female????Thats interesting.
There has to be an explanation 🙂 … but difficult to know. It could be that the nest underneath the leave is not the very best and secure nest for the male, and some fry ‘escaped’ or got lost outside his nest, and then was picked up by the female and placed in a ‘better’ cave.
Or it could be that the male has actually used this bamboo and placed eggs there, but regretted and moved to another cave, – leaving few eggs to hatch.But its really interesting that it seems to be the female caring for the eggs or larvaes. I have experienced it though, and I think others have as well, but its not very often.
And congratulations – then you have more little quindecims again ..Indeed, it’s interesting and very useful to learn from such instances of deviating behaviour.
Factually, there is much more deviating behaviour than we have thought hitherto. Observing some “difficult” fish we all concentrate on finding out the standard forms of their unknown behaviour and often neglect many other things that don’t fit into the standard scheme.
When I first observed a female Paro guarding eggs (= paludicola) I quickly interpreted that as a reaction to the death of the male. Secondly, Linke observed a female linkei guarding her eggs although the male was present nevertheless. And thirdly I saw similar things with parvulus.
Probably, the following has happened in your tank, Stefanie:
1. The pair spawned in that other cave and the male stayed there with the eggs and young until now.
2. The female “stole” some eggs and transferred them to her own cave. I have observed this already with parvulus (not the successful raising, however).
3. The background is that the female Licorice Gouramies have a tendency to care for the eggs and young which is normally dominated by that of the male, but sometimes – for reasons that we don’t know: because of a special strength of the female or a special weakness of the male or something else)this normal scheme can be outdone by the female’s tendency to care for herself.It’s a theory, but the most plausible I have.
Good Morning, Peter,
and thank you for your detailed answer.
Yes, I think you are right – your suspicion corresponds with my own impression that the female might have stolen some eggs…………As I said, the male is sitting in a “cave” near the ground formed by arching leaves. I am not able to look inside, not a single glimpse is possible, it’s totally in the back of the tank. I am sure they mated and spawned like they already did before.
The morning after I posted my observation I still saw the two tiny fry hanging under the ceiling of the cave. But suddenly the male appeared and swam into the cave. I watched him closely to see what he would do – and I am afraid what I saw looked like sweeping the cave by forcefully swaying his caudal. It took just half a minute, then he left the cave and returned into his own hiding place. The two “stolen” fry were gone …………
I find this quite interesting. I doubt that he recognized the fry as his own. To me it seems more like competitive behaviour: He discovered “someone else’s” fry in the surrounding of his own territory and got rid of it.
I know that such behaviour (a male killing the offspring of rivals) occurs in many different animal families – is it known from paros?[quote=”Stefanie” post=2759] I know that such behaviour (a male killing the offspring of rivals) occurs in many different animal families – is it known from paros?[/quote]
No, as far as I know it is not. But I think the interpretation has to be somewhat slightly different:
The male probably did not kill the offspring of a rival but either has taken the two larvae with him to his cave or simply cleaned an extraneous cave within his own territory; whatever “clean” means in this context. Speaking of a “rival” means an antagonistic behaviour against a second male. But this is a proof only that a male in a territory owns a cave and this cave was not his. It’s more directed against the cave (= the center of a territory) than against another fish (“rival”).
This was not aggression towards a rival but affirmation of the center of the territory. Although – I admit – it’s a slight distinction in the interpretation only, a difference in the perspective of description. I don’t think that the brain of such fish is sufficiently developed to be compared with that of a mammal or even a bird, animals who have developed forms of action against the belongings of their rivals. As far as I know fish only adopt offspring of other pairs but not kill them.
But I don’t know it for sure; it’s a hypothesis. I should be interested how things go on in your tank.
I think, if a fish is capable of building a nest (rudimentary in paros, but sometimes very well developed in sister genera) and defending his eggs and offspring, destroying other males’ nests is not a big deal. Males defend their territory against other males, so agression towards rivals’ offspring seems not too improbable to me.
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