P. Phoenicurus general behaviour

[Daniel Odell]

Hello! First post on this forum. I’m a long time fish fanatic with a huge interest in labyrinth fishes.

MY local importer have a few Paro species in stock, the owner of Imazo as the company is called is a fan of these fish as well and travel to collect them according to roumor here in Sweden.

When i saw on his stocklist P. Phoenicurus “Sp Laggam” i could not resist. As i have a breeding stand for labyrinths set up with 6 25L tanks and a large RODI setup for my old coral reef tank i just had to order a group of 5.

Tank filled with RODI water, sponge filter from mature tank, some roots & cone’s from “Alnus” tree was set up and 5 P. Phoenicurus is swimming there now. The tank is bare bottom and painted black everywhere except the front pane. Tanks are set up in the stand so the pane that is 25x25cm and NOT the pane 40×25 faces out and all sides axcept the one facing out is painted black. Some water sprite is providing protection from the top.

Now to the real question(s).

They mostly swim back & forth & up and down along one of the long sides.
4 of them group together, the fifth is mostly hidden behind sponge filter.
Fed BBS and some frozen mosquito larva (i do not know if they eat the frozen, there are some snails who take care of leftovers) and once i saw one of them eat a live Tubifex worm.

In my 45L planted tank i have a large male (female did not make it) of P. Deissneri (atleast that was what the LFS named it). His behaivoir is much more what i expect of Paro & Betta’s, skulking around and exploring slowly.

Is this just an acclimation period? They have been in the tank 1 week today.

Any help to make this guys happy and ready to breed is welcome.

Here is a horrible pic. The tank is very low lit and full of tannins so its hard to take pictures:

Very best regards
Daniel

[helene schoubye]

Dear Ormet.
I am sorry for being 4 days delayed on approving your post (always has to with the first post), I have been too busy the last four days, but still its too long.
But now your post will show as it should.
And welcome to the forum

I would say, that it is probably likely that it is this acclimation behaviour, that they swim up and down a little. The fish on the photo does not look uncomfortable at all, – seems to be settling in and begin to show colours.
What I find with phoenicurus is that they are not so difficult a species.
Of course, a pair will always be more ‘harmonic’ than a group, – if there are two males, one will be the dominant and the other will be showing less bright colours, most likely, – sometimes a ‘second’ male will have to retreat to the back of tank, making you wonder if he is even there. They dont harm each other, but a ‘second’ and less dominant male can suffer in the long run.
And if you want to breed, you need to seperate a pair, and leave this pair on its own. Provide a cave, and a little shelter for the female, and its very likely they will breed, or attempt to.
It sounds to me like you are doing fine, – feeding frost is not in my experience very helpful, – I doubt they will take it. Tubifex can be used, I also do it in periods where I need some extra food, – but I use it really careful. Like one little worm and best to see it being eaten. The thing about tubifex is that they are very fat as far as I know, – and they hide, so they may not get eaten at all, and will only pollute the tank. With the small tanks and the absence of pumps etc, we need to be careful about how much we feed.

Kind regards Helene Schoubye, admin

[Peter Finke]

Daniel, everything Helene said is right. I only want to to supply some points.
1. The name of the location is Langgam (on Sumatra), not Laggam.
2. I am in doubt that the female you show to us is a phoenicurus (form of the tail fin, marking of the dorsal). But I can be wrong and it’s not important. Let them grow and display, then we shall see.
3. Your tank seems to be rather empty. Paros don’t live in their natural waters in the empty space but near or even in the riparian zones crowded with reed, near old twigs and branches of wood and masses of leaves that had fallen down. You should fill in some structures, best are small old pieces of dead wood from peat bogs. The usual aquarium plants mostly don’t stand the water values; small pieces of “Java moss” and “Java fern” could be helpful. Structuring the empty water will help the new fish to acclimate.
4. Small flocks of tiny barbs like Boraras spec. help also; they must be caught out if breeding begins.
5. Then at the latest you should remove that snails also, of which one is to be seen. They could not stand the normal water values because of missing Ca.
6. By the way: You don’t say anything on the water values. The pH must be fixed below 7.0, the calcium hardness around zero. The best is to measure electronically and try to get a Microsiemens more than 10 and less than about 60.
7. Your other fish are definitely no deissneri. P. deissneri is endemic on Bangka island and near to extinction. There is no commercial fishing. All places known for long to the specialists are definitely totally destroyed. We shall see later what you have really.
Best, Peter

[Daniel Odell]

Hello and thank you for your replies.

I have received location for the fish now from the importer.
Sumatra, Pekanbaru, Riau province, near the river floating through Laggam area, named by the fisherman who caught them as “Laggam River”. I guess, since Langgam is very close, it is Langgam that is implied, not Laggam.

As for exact species, you are right, it is not important as long as they are healthy and want to breed.

The tank has a lot of bog wood in it and some floating java sprite and a few Bucephalandra attached to bog wood. I have nothing on the bottom of the tank to make it easier to clean but i might add some oak leaves. Fall is here and the leaves will start to fall in huge numbers any second.

As for tank parameters, i do not measure. it is 100% RODI water with 0 TDS according to electronic TDS meter. This with bog wood and Alder cones must create a low pH & close to 0 conductivity, of that i am fairly sure. i vacuum the bottom and change 15% twice weekly.

The snail is removed! But she has laid eggs on a leaf … we shall see if they survive.

Vbr
Daniel

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