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After a few months with my first Paro species I finally have some fry, I managed to get a photo of them on the roof of their coconut cave where the male has been gaurding them very well so far.
I think I can count 14 of them.
They are almost free swimming.
Hopefully I will be able to rear them.
How nice 🙂 .. they are so tiny.
What do you feed them ?Are they still in the tank with the parents ?
I have some experience with rearing fry now, – but I have found along the way that there are things to learn all the time, one of this is food for the fry
I quess you might not have seen them since that day on the coconut roof 🙂 .. paro-fry can dissappear and then turn up one month later 1 cm big 🙂 …
Hi Helene,
Yes, they are very tiny. At the time I took the photo (yesterday) they were still with the parents.
However, following advice from Allan Brown at the AAGB meeting last Saturday I have today moved them into a small tank with water from the adults tank. I moved them as they had started to dart about a lot, which according to Allan is the time when the male will cease to look after them.
I have paramecium ready for the fry, and have put a small amount into their tank already, I am guessing this should be fine as the paramecium will live in the tank with them until they eat it. I also have micro worm available for when they are a suitable size. I hatch live BBS twice a day for all of the fish in my fish house every day so they will also get this when they get big enough to take it.
What is your advice with regard to food?
Regards
Paul
It sounds like you are very well prepared.
And I think if you get advice from Allan Brown you are getting help from a very good expert. I dont think I can add anything there ..
I think paramecium is really good when they are at that size, – I only recently started to culture that, and I think my ‘fry-surviving-rate’ has grown since then.
Its difficult with those tiny fry to know how much to give, but they are so small that any tank will almost be very big, and I often think that there shouldnt be too far between the foodparticles 🙂I hatch live BBS once a day – twice is a lot, you must have a lot of happy fish 🙂 …
Helene is right, you are priviliged by having Allan around for getting first-hand advice.
The best food for very small licorice gouramis are rotifiers, caught from the wild. But one could breed them easily, too. You only must get a starting population from a breeder-friend.
But you could work with Paramecium, too. Especially with filamentosus or nagyi or quindecim this is possible. If you manage to get best California brine shrimp cysts, the newly hatched animals are so small that they could be eaten from the very beginning by the young Paros. At any rate the young fish manage to eat normal freshly hatched brine shrimps mostly form the second weeks (not older ones, but you don’t have that problem!).
Many friends experience what Helene reports that suddenly there are some older young appearing in their parent’s tank, if there is enough cover on the ground (peat or leaves) and later on the surface (and one is lucky to have peaceful adults, which is often the case but not always).
A good food for very tiny fry is vinegar eels, too (not micro: they are bigger and sink down very fastly, whereas vinegar eels are more tiny and live long in the free water). But you know that, of course. I write it down for others who read this.
Thanks Helene,
You are right about Allan, even though I only spent about an hour with him I learned an awful lot.
For now I am adding paramecium to their tank. The day before the fry went in there I squeezed a sponge filter out into the tank to give some other natural organisms.
Their tank is currently only 2 litres, it has old oak leaves, java fern and java moss in there. I have not seen them since I released them in there – not sure whether they are still ok, but I have heard from lots of people that they disappear for a while – so fingers crossed.
I hatch live BBS twice a day as I have 30+ tanks with mostly smaller fish and lots of fry to rear. However, even the bigger fish seem to enjoy live BBS.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately my access to Allan Brown was only for an hour or so at the meeting last weekend.
I currently dont have rotifers – at least not a pure rotifer only culture. I am sure that water/debris from a mature healthy sponge filter will provide many “rotifer like” organisms, at least I hope so.
I do have a tin (actually 4, 500g tins) of the very small California type BBS eggs but have not yet opened the 1st one as I am just finishing my last tin of previous bigger BBS eggs. I may open it and hatch some in about a weeks time when the fry should be able to eat this.
Vinegar eels is a live food that I do have a culture of, but have never fed it to my fish as I have yet to come across a god method for harvesting them – any tips?
Regards
Paul
I think that Allan likes to see people continuing his work with Paros in Britain. For he did it for many years with great success and it ended abruptly. It’s really a pity for the British Paro scene (and the continental, too)!
Surely, the filter sponge will produce quite a lot of edible organisms for the young fish.
As the California brine shrimp eggs are concerned, it’s the same with me. First the other can must be emptied fully, then I shall continue with them. In onr or two weeks you young Paros will be able to feed on them.
And even your problem with the vinegar eels reminds me of my own. Only lately I learned two methods which might be conveniant.
I know the first from Paramecium; it does work with vinegar eels, too. Fill the eel-loaden vinegar in a bottle with long narrow bottleneck (or breed them there already)so that the narrow bottleneck remains partly free. Then put a pad of cotton-wool in it with contact to the vinegar. And then fill the rest of the bottleneck gently with water. Two hours later you can harvest the eels by a pipette and feed them to the fish.
The second method is similar to the harvesting of micro: use a small amount of yeast in a bottleneck to attract the eels. After a while they creep out of the vinegar on the blank insides of the neck. You can harvest them with a fine brush.
Hi Peter,
Many thanks for your reply.
I think that Allan likes to see people continuing his work with Paros in Britain. For he did it for many years with great success and it ended abruptly. It’s really a pity for the British Paro scene (and the continental, too)!
It is a real shame based on what I hear from you and from others too, certainly the time I spent with him was very useful.
Surely, the filter sponge will produce quite a lot of edible organisms for the young fish.
Its something I have done often with Corydoras fry, it seems to get them off to a good start.
I know the first from Paramecium; it does work with vinegar eels, too. Fill the eel-loaden vinegar in a bottle with long narrow bottleneck (or breed them there already)so that the narrow bottleneck remains partly free. Then put a pad of cotton-wool in it with contact to the vinegar. And then fill the rest of the bottleneck gently with water. Two hours later you can harvest the eels by a pipette and feed them to the fish.
I have heard of this one but never tried it yet, I will have to give it a go. I have never heard of it for paramecium though. I just use a turkey baster to take the paramecium and the water they grow in and put it direct into the fry tank.
The second method is similar to the harvesting of micro: use a small amount of yeast in a bottleneck to attract the eels. After a while they creep out of the vinegar on the blank insides of the neck. You can harvest them with a fine brush.
This one I have never heard of for vinegar eels, it sounds like it would be quite tricky but also could be worth a try if the first method you have noted does not yield good results.
Today is the first day that I have seen one or two of the fry in their rearing tank, but I only got a fleeting glance at them as they swam off into the leaf litter.
on Allan: It is very good to learn that Allan sometimes is present on meetings and sees that there are people who might continue his work. This was not the case when he stopped fishkeeping. There was a great loss with his very rare species (the true deissneri! spec.Sungai Stunggang! allani! spec. Kota Tinggi! etc.) that must be given away to people who were not able to keep them alive, not to say to breed them. I now slowly get the impression that the dark period after may end …
on the yeast method: It’s new to me, too. I learned it from Martin Hallmann. I only tried it once and it was successful. Nvertheless I am cautious because I don’t want to infer yeast into my Paro-tanks …
on the visibility of young fry: After free swimming young Paro-fry are mostly not visible at all, but about one to three weeks later one sees more and more. Of course, some parents are aggressive against their young, but not all. One has to try it out. The youngest often hide in leaves on the ground, later on in swimming plants on the surface.
on breeding methods generally: Sometimes good experts say bad words about the extensive-breeding-method. Really, it will mostly produce only a few fry – sometimes more, sometimes less – keeping the stock at a good level. They argue that we should produce more fish by the intensive methods, and real experts would do so. That might be true, looking at the general situation with Paros. But I always defend the extensive breeders (often beginners): Inetsive breeding is much more difficult and need more equipment, you block the power of the beginners by talking like this. I see it with myself, too: I seldom do an intensive brood. Only with the extensive methods I can keep my many species, and I am happy if they propagate from time to time.
on the name: It’s filamentosus (not -um, at least in the original description).
I have used vinegar eels before, harvesting them in the way Peter describes, – its not so difficult actually.
I use this bottle
Its an old dressing bottle 🙂
I use some old filter material to put in – not cotton-wool, you have to make sure its not too dense so that the eels cannot move through it. But still dense though, as you wish to keep the vinegar seperate from the water. I suppose (I have not yet tried that) but in fact you might be able to use soft water so as not to introduce hard water to any tank you feed. Why the water keeps seperate from the vineager I dont understand, but it seems so. I have sometimes tested the taste, because I worried (what you dont do for the fishes :woohoo: ) but it does not taste of vineager.
If you have a good culture of eels, they sure will crawl up in thousands …
You dont actually have to have more than maybe 3-4 cm of water, its easyer to draw them up with a pipette if theres less water. And you can refill with water.The paramecium I feed directly, – those I feed with coffee cream, a drop a day for a glas
Hi Helene,
Thank you for your message, it certainly helps seeing a photo of the bottle you are using etc. I will have to try it.
I feed my paramecium an egglayer fry food liquid “Liquifry No 1” a couple of drops per day for a 2 litre culture.
This morning I was lucky enough to see one of my fry for long enough to take a poor photo, but at least I now know that at least one is still surviving.
On another note, how can I get my photo’s to appear in the message rather than appearing as an attachment that people have to click on to open? Your help would be appreciated.
Hi Peter,
Thanks for your message.
I now slowly get the impression that the dark period after may end …
Let’s hope so. There are a few of us now trying to do our bit with Paro’s, time will tell if we can be successful.
on the yeast method: Nevertheless I am cautious because I don’t want to infer yeast into my Paro-tanks …
Me neither, its one of the reasons I stopped using yeast in my paramecium cultures.
on the visibility of young fry: After free swimming young Paro-fry are mostly not visible at all, but about one to three weeks later one sees more and more. Of course, some parents are aggressive against their young, but not all. One has to try it out. The youngest often hide in leaves on the ground, later on in swimming plants on the surface.
So far I have seen only one fry (the photo I posted), hopefully there are more that are hiding.
on the name: It’s filamentosus (not -um, at least in the original description).
Thanks for pointing that out. I have changed reference to that on any of my posts where I can.
I managed to get a short video today of one of the young P filamentosus.
Up until today I had only seen 2 together, but I have seen at least 7 at the same time during today.
Another wonderful post here, hearing of ones success at spawning.
I am very new at this, in fact haven’t even ordered my fish yet, although the tank setups are coming along great.
SPECIAL NOTE:
I think here on the Forum it would also be great to have a section where breeders post their water parameters for different species etc. to share with everyone else. That is one of the first things I thought of when I started reading this post.and CONGRATS to PauLH1968 !!!
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