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Hello,
I suppose that I could be considered a fairly experienced aquarists. I have always had a special interest in labyrinth fish and have bred various species over the years. I am new to licorice gouramis however. I have a group of six in a 20 gallon high tank (61 cm x 33 cm x 43 cm), heavily planted and filtered by a large sponge filter. I also have driftwood and a few almond leaves for decoration and hiding in addition to several small caves for breeding. Temperature is around 22 to 23 C most of the time. I already had a group of Danio margaritatus in this tank that have have been in there for about five years. About six months ago I introduced six P. deissneri. They were WC. all seem to be doing well. I feed them fine flakes, frozen food, and live whiteworms, mosquito larvae, and blackworms. So far however I have seen no sign of breeding activity. Could it be the presence of the margaritatus? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
ChipChip, before answering to your questions I have some questions myself:
1. Are you sure it’s deissneri? The males with a lanceolate caudal fin with black filament? Most fish called like this are not. Compare our portrait of deissneri.
2. Are you sure that you have males and females?
3. If you have: Are you sure they belong to the same species?
4. Are you sure that the fish are at least nine months old?
5. What are the water parameters? The temperature is of minor interest.
6. Are you really sure they feed on “fine flakes”? I have never seen licorice gouramis taking other than live foods (with the exception of frozen live food which I do not recommend)?
7. How big and how vivacious/brisk/vivid are those Danios?
8. Where do you live?
I am interested in your answers; I need them to reply myself finally.Hi Peter and thank you for your response. I will number my answers to correspond with your questions.
1.I am fairly certain they are deissneri. I will check the males later this evening however. I ordered them from Anubias Design. Mark seems very knowledgable of labyrinth fish and often has at least several species of Parosphromenus to offer at any given time.
2. I am not seeing a significant difference in size however three defintely display the rich coloration of males of this species. Two are very subdued in coloration and one I am just not sure about.
3. I suppose not. Again refer to the first answer.
4. No. They were all actually quite small when I received them. They have all put on size and weight since however.
5. To be honest I rarely ever test my water. Our local water source (the New River) is relatively clean and I religously perform weekly partial water changes on all of the aquatic and semi-aquatic tanks. I rarely ever lose animals and many breed. With that being said, I did test all of the tanks about two months ago when checking ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels on a new tank that was setup for some fish that were being imported from Germany and all of them checked out just fine.
6. There is no doubt that they very much prefer live and frozen food over the flakes. I feed three times a day (small amounts). In the morning is when I offer flakes, mostly for the danios. The deissneri pick at them but not with the same gusto as they do fresh foods. I generally feed live foods in the afternoon and frozen in the evenings.
7. “Galaxy” danios are small, generally only a few cm long. They are not nearly as active as many of the more common species. I once kept some with a few Betta imbellis and they hid all the time. In this setup however they are more active and breed with some regularity.
8. In Virginia (USA).
Chip
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