P. tweediei “Sri Bunian”

[David Jones]

P. tweediei “Sri Bunian” – F1 juveniles. Wild fish collected from drainage canal in palm plantation in Sri Bunian, near Pontian in Johore State, Malaysia by Kent Lawrence and Peter Beyer in December of 2014. I received 7 fish and can see at least two pairs. At 10 weeks old, coloration in fins clearly can indicate males and females.

Photos 1 & 2 – Male
Photos 3 & 4 – Female (no metallic blue-green bands in fins)

My thanks to Lawrence Kent for sending this fish.

[Stefanie Rick]

Thank you for these photos!

But I am sure you wanted to write “10 month old”, didn’t you? These fish can not be only 10 weeks old …………

[David Jones]

Stefanie, good question. I will say the breeder stated they were 9 weeks old when he sent them and I’ve had them for about a week, so 10 weeks. I will check with the breeder again, maybe he meant to say months instead of weeks.

I forgot to mention that these fish are no more than 1.75cm total length – some even less. Perhaps the camera zoom gives the appearance that these fish are larger?

About how long, on average, does it take paro young to attain 1.75cm? At the rate my nagyi fry are growing, I am thinking they will be well beyond 1.75cm after 10 months (40+ weeks.) Some are already approaching 1cm after just 8 weeks or so.

[helene schoubye]

🙂 perhaps he didnt count the weeks before he actually saw them :blink:
But some fry do grow rather quick, – I know that sometimes it seems to take ages, but some species I would say 3 months is enough to reach the size your fish has. They look grown up, adult yet probably smaller in size. But possible to sex them though.
They look fine and healthy, – interesting fish.

You can see a thread about the development of fry here https://www.parosphromenus-project.org/en/forum/17-Pictures/1563-close-up-of-fry.html?start=12 – note the last photo of a male app. 4 months old.

[Peter Finke]

Indeed, young Paros could grow up slowly and fastly. I always was used to the impression of slowliness, but my experience was limited. It was confined to my own methods and that of some fellow-Paroists, and these methods were that of extensive breeding. But then I came across quite the contrary. Especially Horst Linke is a master in growing young fish much faster than others, and that depends on intensive feeding, water care and much room for each individual. I was always impressed how quick his young fish grew. I often received Paros from him of which he said to be half a year of age, but they were adult, showing their full colours, mated and bred. My own fish always needed double the time or more. I remember especially some P. tweediei which were rather larger, but according to him only half a year. And this was surely true. Compared with fish by Günter Kopic or Bernd Bussler they were giants and those of them and myself dwarfs.

But there was an opposite truth, too. These large fish did not live very long. The explication for the fastness of their growth was Horst’s aim to have good photographs of them (which we can view in his publications); time and space was money and fast growth a necessity. Put however into “normal” tanks for a “normal” Paro-life-circle they died earlier than many others. Günter Kopic had a male P. deissneri for more than eight years, and it bred until its seventh. Horst’s young became adult in a hurry, but grew old in the same quick ratio.

I can imagine that the fish shown by friend Ekona are indeed ten weeks.

[David Jones]

Thank you Helene and Peter for your valuable information. The photos of the development of the young in the other thread you referred to, Helene, are really fine, and serve as a good documentation of possible growth rates in paros. That the growth rate of young depends on several factors certainly makes sense given the same can be true of other genera and species of fish – and interesting, Peter, to note the correlation between growth rate and lifespan. I would agree that the P. tweediei to seem to have been grown out more fast than slow, yet I would emphasize that the colorations are just beginning to show (perhaps highlighted by the camera) and that the fish are still quite small. My nagyi seem to be on pace with normal growth rate, as well, based the photos in the other thread. Still no word from the breeder confirming age, but I’d have to agree it is quite possible that he is correct in his statement of nine weeks age, based also on what is known.

[David Jones]

I just heard back from the breeder and Stefanie was correct in thinking the tweediei pictured were too well developed to be 10 weeks old. He re-checked his records and in fact they are 4 months old. There is one smaller fish in the batch that he sent along and that one is now 10 weeks old, but not the larger ones I photographed. So good eye 😉 . That does seem to fit better with the development sequence in the thread Helene referenced as well. More photos when I can manage them.

[Stefanie Rick]

Thank you, Ekona ………… yes, I think an age of about 4 month sounds very plausible. This is about the time that my nagyi-young needed to grow up to a similar size and colouration.

But nevertheless, when reading all the reports here in this forum on the rearing of fry of the most diverse species or forms, I have got the impression that the growth rates are very different, indeed – depending on various factors, as Peter already concluded.

[David Jones]

I had to give some less time to the hobby these past few months, yet with enough care these P. tweeediei have developed with some very nice colors and are now just about 2.5cm in length and 8 and half months old. I have two males and 5 females, so a good potential breeding group. When fully grown these should be quite magnificent animals. Nice to see all the other photos and discussions ongoing on the forum.

Here are the two males and three of the females
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/923/oj3LAe.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the smaller, slightly less colorful male
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/924/GgzUzV.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/924/aZprTk.jpg[/IMG]

Here is the larger male (showing better golden colors) and a female
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/923/BrNuGX.jpg[/IMG]

Here one of the females
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/924/DrgFMi.jpg[/IMG]

And another of the females
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/922/z2n3GV.jpg[/IMG]

[Rafael Eggli]

Hi,

These Fish are beautiful! Whats the sitze of your tank?

[David Jones]

Thanks, yes, beautiful species. This group is in ~25L of water in a half-filled 40L (10 US gal) aquarium. There is plenty of space and caves of leaves for them to hide and have small territories, yet they know where the food will be at feeding time and they all come out to that area to feed. I observe all 7 of them feeding, so there is no lack of getting food due to a larger area.

David

[David Jones]

Here is a brief video of some of these P. tweediei ‘Sri Bunian’ feeding. They are really starting to show better colors.

https://youtu.be/skhsAnvnIms

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