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‘ello all! I have good news, and I have bad news. The bad news…only a few days after a 40% water change, and the total ammonia is back to 1 ml/l 🙁 Still not 100% sure why, but it’s possible that when I was giving microworms to this tank, I was giving a lot more than I thought I was…only gave microworms once since the last water change, so not 100% sure this is the sole cause, but it’s worth a shot…
On the upside, in spite of my very stupid newb mistakes (water with significant hardness, excess nutrients, etc), my paros are doing fine…in fact, I caught the male trying to court one of the females a matter of minutes ago, and she was paling a bit…maybe she was considering it seriously? I don’t think I will succeed in spawning these fishes until I fix the goofed water parameters, though.
AJ — I would make two suggestions at this point. Stop feeding for 48 hours and then to a 30 -40 percent water change. In the meantime I would go to Wallgreens or a similar drug store and try to purchase some plastic pipettes (photo attached). When I hatch BBS I find I have way to much shrimp to feed to the Paros. The tendency is to overfeed. With the pipettes you can feed very small amounts and direct where to place the BBS in the tank. For example, when I feed blood worms I actually count the worms released into the tank. If I return 30 minutes later and I find worms on the floor of the tank then I feed too much and I adjust the next feeding. It’s a little more difficult to measure the amount of BBS. In the beginning it was tempting when you were finished feeding to dump the remaining BBS into the tank. I do not do that anymore. Now whatever remains I feed to the wild bettas in other tanks. Hope this helps …
Yes, this is exactly how I do it, too. I have an extremely long plastic pipette and feed very small amounts og BS naupli under the catappa leaves where the paros like to hang out. Any surplus naupli from a hatching is evenly distributed in all my cory tanks. They go wild 🙂
I now have a good culture of Moina naupli to harvest, too. Breeding them is even simpler…fresh water, no air, just light and food. And they live on in the tank until they’re eaten. I use exactly the same pipette method, and the Moina naupli tend to swim near the bottom…very convenient !
OK! Thankx 🙂 I happen to already have some of those eyedroppers lying around for aquarium purposes, so that shouldn’t be too hard to start doing. Need to keep reminding myself that I am dealing with a fish that comes from an extremely nutrient poor environment in the wild 🙂
By the way, how do you culture moina? I’ve heard that some people have enormous success with daphnia, at least, with – curiously enough – hay (which apparently produces an enormous amount of microorganisms they enjoy eating).
Eyedropers are (usually) short things that do not work for this purpose. The pipette has to be LONG.
Moina : I bought “sleeping eggs” from evilbay…without any high expectation of success. They were started in a small plastic coke bottle and hatched in about 8 days. Then i started feeding them with some algae paste and a tip I found on the net : A mixture made from Gram flour and water, kept in the fridge. Since then, it has been a question of “potting them up” into bigger containers as they grew and multiplied. All they need is light, I use a clip-on LED lamp 24/7. I have a doc about breeding them, if you’re interested.
Thank you! On another note…if the male spawns and you can see neither the spawning nor the cave he used, will he show any behavioral differences that betray the fact that he spawned?
Target fed my paros today, as suggested…fed them a mere fraction of maybe 1/24th a teaspoon of BBS egg :O Worked quite well, though the male’s obsessive attempts to court one of the females resulted me in feeding slightly more than planned.
Feel like pulling my hair out with this project…I had set up a future, 20l spawning tank with rain water and 2 ml distilled white vinegar per gallon to hold the PH down until I get alder cones (no fish in this tank currently, fortunately). Like the main tank, the ammonia in this tank was too high, so after doing a water change I decided to encourage a cycle (or at least the proliferation of the duckweed I added to help keep the nitrogen down) by adding a tiny pinch of flakes instead of a couple ml of very microworm rich water…failing to notice the calcium carbonate on the flake’s ingredient label 🙁 Today I found the tank has jumped to a PH of 6.5, prompting me to restart it. The main tank’s PH was at 6.7 this morning…various reasons for that. I think I will also be restarting that tank as soon as I can move the paros to the 5 gallon…for a person that has been seriously considering paros on and off for almost 3 years, this is being a very bumpy start…
Hi, A.J.,
Perhaps you should be more patient until you get the right stuff? Not taking vinegar but wait till the elder cones arrive? B)The alder cones arrived yesterday…however, my woes with paros (or, more accurately, their water) are continuing 🙁 Sunday I purchased a few small, plain terra cotta pots at a local store with the intent of using them as spawning caves for my male paro…not even imagining that they were not nearly as inert as expected. As of yesterday the future spawning tank had shot up from a ph in the mid 4’s to the mid 6’s…all because of the terra cotta pots. In retrospect I think I should have rinsed them first, but still…with all these problems, I don’t feel as if I will ever get close to spawning my paros.
Hello, Now I would like but also to have your say.
This all sounds very dramatic. First of all, alder cones in my experience not the best choice, they will get moldy quickly and pollute the water addition. Let’s try better with peat in a small filter. And you do not head to the PH value is going down at regular feeding alone. From experiments with vinegar I advise, as the pH value does not remain stable and very you schwankt.Wenn plants in the aquarium have and it is your survival experiments, the good, I have no plants, survive nicht.Stattdessen my water values I and peat music in my aquarium that goes very well for years. For most Paros you do not need extreme PH values just below 5 or 5 is sufficient for most species, once a week change of water is much more important‘ello all! Here’s how things stand:
– Ammonia/ammonium levels are now under control (.25 mg/l right before 40% water change), courtesy of reduced feedings.
– PH levels are still aggravatingly high (6.7 in the main tank). Will be performing a tank restart to try to get it to the desired 5 or less value. I’ve also heard of a product (acid buffer by seachem) that seems to convert carbonates to CO2 in the process of acidifying the water…likely a useful product for a paro tank 🙂 Will be looking into that in the near future. On a related note, I have taken to boiling alder cones to extract their tannins, which is being VERY helpful in that respect
– In an impulsive moment, I made the mistake of removing all the plants and other decor from the main tank while trying to see the male more. While it worked…all three fish are much more flighty now and (likely combined with the above PH issue) visibly stressed (in particular it has been a while since I have seen the male try to court any of the females, and his colors are faded). This is going to need fixing…going to rescape the tank to both make it more enjoyable to the fish and to make it less of an eyesore (while on that topic…any suggestions on caves for amorous male paros? I tried using terra cotta caves as shown in many paro tanks, but they sent the PH in the spawning tank I tried them in jumping up)
– Still feeding the fish BBS every other day. I have grindal worm cultures I received last week that are doing well, but they are not quite at harvesting level yet…when they are they will be fed 2 or 3 times a week (on days they are not fed BBS)
Well, that’s my update! Thankx for giving me a listen!Almost forgot…I hear a lot about people getting paros to breed with live mosquito larvae. Are these actually needed to get them in spawning condition?
In my opinion, you are trying too hard and on too many leveles at once. Restarting the tank is useless. Just be consistent and patient with water changes and prepare the water with alder cone exctract (soak the cones in RO water for day or two, than just use the exctract and do not put the cones in the tank, big handful in one liter of RO water should make the job for about 10 liters of water. I add extract from one big catapa leave that I soak in a bucket in the meantime when preparing the aldercone extract, you transfer that leave in to the tank with water and remove it after another 2-3 days), beech leaves (not green of course! may stay in the tank for very long time, almost do not spoil and make great bottom), Terminalia catapa leaves need to be removed after 2 weeks at the worst. If you bought peat, you may drop the water over it. This way, the rest of the ions in your RO water will exchange for H+ and make the water very acidic and stable. Using more types of these natural substances makes the water better and more stable. Avoid any other chemicals that do not come from these natural things. Also when feeding artemia, make sure you wash it on the sieve with RO water so that the brine solution does not get in to the tank. If you are putting some tap water in the tank with your pippets, the pH will of course go up slowly again.
Regarding the mosquito larvae, they help, but they are not necessary. They just contain substances that help trigger spawning, but these are in many other foods, cyclops for example works great too.
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