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Just for short:
Lawrence and I have returned safely from our short field trip to Sarawak. Accompanied by Michael Lo (thanks for help and company!) we went to the Sibu area first, to find P. allani in the peat swamps surrounding the city. This was successful: we were able to find the species in two locations. We are now trying our very best to breed!
We then continued our trip to the known Sungai Stunggang (Lundu) location to find P. aff. allani. However, despite all fishing efforts for hours, we could not catch a single one. That this morphe can be present in significant numbers or be completely absent in this spot appears to be an observation that has been made by others in the past. This sungai is very untypical for a Parosphromenus biotope – it is way too large and the water is way too whitish. One might speculate that the fish actually sit elsewhere, in smaller tributaries and may be washed into the river only at times of high productiviy. But we don´t know. Fact is that the river was massively populated by (very pretty) Trichopsis vittata and by kissing guramis at the time of our visit. And we have understood over the years that Trichopsis and Parosphromenus are mutually exclusive, cum grano salis, haven´t we?Alongside the P. allani, we netted some additional fish. Does anyone know what species these young, presumably Nandus leaf-fish are?
Here are Peter Beyer and Lawrence Kent, photographed after finding P. allani near Sibu last week. I cannot thank Peter enough for organizing this fantastic expedition. We had a lot of laughs and opportunities to learn.
Beyer working his net in the blackwaters of Sibu…
and one of the Rabora pauciperphorata he captures alongside the Parosphromenus allani:
Checking out some of the freshly caught allani (in a restaurant on the trip back to Kucing)
and one of the P. allani photographed the day after capture, looking a bit stressed in a crude photo cuvette:
Very soft water at the first collection site in Sibu, as measured by Peter Beyer. I’ll leave it to him to describe how we measured pH…
Lawrence, Jungle Mike Lo, and Peter Beyer in Kucing. Jungle Mike helped us find the best fishing locations and taught me a lot about the local environment.
The reddish waters of the first allani collection site:
Thanks for the photos, Lawrence – neat looking fish! Hopefully each of you is successful breeding them as you have certainly gone through a lot of discomforts (if not difficulties) to rescue them before their habitat is gone forever. Greetings to Peter Beyer and Michael Lo with congratulations!
David
Thanks to both Lawrence and Peter for sharing their photos and experiences with us all. It was also great to see a photo of Michael Lo. For years we have seen his photos on the internet and in publications but he is always behind the camera. We look forward to hearing for of your experiences with your allani’s as they settle into their new homes and perhaps the breeding process.
I should like to thank Peter, Lawrence and Jungle Mike for this fine report in pictures and Texts. Please put some of this into the ASIAN-forum, too (slightly changed, otherwise it would not be accepted).
But now some vital points:
1. Although I very much congratulate you for you success in the allani-case at Sibu location, I wonder what happened during the last years. The result of Christian Hinz’ travel about six or seven years ago was quite the opposite. He caught many male and female P. spec. aff. allani (= spec. Lundu or spec. Sungai Stunggang) but only two or three male allani at Sibu. Which location is the most endangered one?
2. From the viewpoint of our stock this is fine, because Bernd Bussler (who received all the fish of Hinz after his retirement) has quite a large stock of Sungai Stunggang, but the nice “original” allani was missing in our stock since Linke’s last trip about ten years ago. Therefore: fine result, now allani is back, one of the most beautiful Paros I ever had. And you can get the other form via Bernd; he has enough offspring.
3. Good to see Peter Beyer standing deeply submerged in the water; that gives an impression both of the deepness of this river and the difficulty of catching these fish at the riparian border in the thicket of grasses.
4. And it’s impressive to see how soft that waters are! Lawrence said that Peter should tell us how he measured the pH. And, Peter, how do you did?
5. In have necer been there myself. Since the beginning of the looking for Paros in Sarawak, there are always only these two locations named. Are there really no others left that would be worthwhile to be investigated? Of course, the eastern parst are probably too hilly or montaineous, but what about the more western parts? We learn that the deforestation progressed very fast over there. Or is the travelling situation so difficult that one is unable to reach other parts of the landscape?
Well, compliments to the three of us. And I echo Bill: Nice to see Jungle Mike. We all love his photos, but we have seldom seen himself!
As to pH measurements:
The only Problem with Lawrence is that he tends to forget things. At this Occasion, he did not bring his pH meter (while I did bring the conductivity meter – just to make this clear). So I uged him to make use of his sensory experience in water chemistry, which he then did, as can be seen in the two attached photos. This way he came up with a pH of 4.375. I have no reason for doubt!🙂 Lawrence has a talent that we did not recognize here in the U.S. I must have him come to my fishroom and check all my tanks with his finger!
🙂 A close examination of the first photo reveals that Lawrence’s finger is not actually touching the water and therefore he did not actually sample it :whistle: . I think this is because he knows that using the sensory method, one must guzzle and swill one liter of the sample solution at least 5 times to get an accurate reading – given the looks of the peat swamp water :S, I cannot say I blame him for the slightly diminished sampling technique :lol:.
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