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The “wood” that is sold in pet shops for the use in normal aquaria belongs to totally different sorts of wood. Wood from peat regions is the best, but it is normally sold dried out and that is bad already. If you are once able to get hold of f r e s h wet wood pieces from bogs or swamps, take it. It’s just the best. If you only get hold of dried pieces, you must soak it before some days in destilled or at least pure rain water and continue to measure pH and conductivity.
There are many sort of “oak-wood” sold, too, and it is impossible to tell generally it to be goood or bad. You must try. And I don’t remember the place, but I warned to use Mopani-wood some time ago. This African wood is entirely useless resp. wrong for use in blackwater tanks with a stabile low pH.
A good alternative to fresh bog wood from peat regions is alder from creeks or small rivers, but only dead pieces that could be collected under water.
Therefore mind: Wood is not the same as wood. And pet shops sell many things that are entirely useless for Paro-lovers.
Update: Filamentosis Young
All 6 young fish are well and greet me at the front of the tank for feeding. The brine shrimp and moina are keeping them fat. I always tap the front of the tank just before food time.. it works well to bring them all out for inspection.. and it didn’t take long to train them.
I now suspect there are 4 males and 2 females. Still no strong colors but the males caudal fins are developing nice, The suspect females are very similar in patterns for now, but do also have a less developed caudal ie: more rounded.
The males are occasionaly sparring with each other, especially a more dominant male who keeps his colors darker. They do this in a head down manner and usually clamped fins, except the dominant who will also flare his fins for a full display.
The Wet Spot is getting (hopefully) Parvulus and Sintang next week. They still have Ornaticauda.
I’m not sure what the heck Sintang is, seems to be a generic name in the industry, and have found several different pictures of them, but mostly may be “Blue Line”
The young Filaments are doing well and I’m fairly confident that I will have 2 pairs out of the six fish.
The males are darkening up and the filament is growing well. The females are lighter in color.
I will try to get some pics for you all, but, always struggle with good aquarium pictures.
“Sintang” or “Sentang” is a location on Sumatra in the Jambi-district and is used as a trade-name for a hitherto undecribed variant of a bintan-type licorice gouramy. Sometimes the trade speaks of “P. sintangensis” which should sound like a scientific name but it is nonsense. Look at our “other forms” pages, see the “spieces”-button.
Sentang is the most traded licorice gouramy of the last years. If you find Parosphromenus in the trade, whatever name, most are spec. Sentang. This means that this is a most productive and easy to exploit location. And many exporters (not to speak of their catchers, of course) don’t bother about names; it’s mostly either “deissneri” or “Sentang”.
But the problem is that there are several rather similar forms living in country Jambi quite near of the Sentang-area, and we guess they have been mingled already in the trade. Since we do not know anything about the genetic similarities or differences of these forms that could be either without any importance or on the contrary loaden with heavy consequences. Not always are similar-looking fish (or birds, lizards, plants etc.) identical; often the development of genetic differences has begun already. The only thing we can do is to keep Parosphromenus-fish that we have reasons to stem from different locations strictly apart!
Most aquarists who bought their licorice gouramies from the trade from 2009 onwards have spec. Sentang swimming in their tanks.
Quick update on my end of the project:
The young filamentosis are doing great. The males are developing the filament and the females are staying a lighter color, some almost tan colored and their horizontal stripes sometimes show as a series of squares.
I will seperate the pairs when I see breeding colors and a sign of possibly, hopefully pairing off.
The Moina cultures are blossoming in the culture with a heater, the others I let stay cool to slow them down.. easy and quite productive.
I’m getting Blackworms today and have that all ready.
I’m at the point to read more, keep and eye on parameters,etc. and wait, patience is most important.
BTW it seems that Amazon Frogbit (limnobium laevigatum) makes a very nice floater
I just got in 6 Parvulus and acclimating them now… cute little fish, they are appox .5 – .75 inches.
I also stopped off the road today and picked up some aged bamboo. I liked the idea of bamboo caves and they will look nice in the tanks.
It’s also time to work on getting some pictures for you all.. I’ll see what I can do in the next few days I hope. Especially the Filamentosus, which are looking very similar to the Ampah, by the pics that were posted. ???
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