Pictures of my Paros

[Ryan P]

Hello,

Below are pictures of some of the Paros I currently have in my tank. What I believe to be relatives of sp. “Blue Line” and sp. Filamentosus.

[bartian]

Hi!
There is a lot to tell you, clearly. First of all, really cool you started keeping paros!
They are great fish to keep, but there are quite some downsides too.
I see you are keeping them with Tanichthys. Sorry to say, but those are probably the worst tankmates one could choose. They come from completely different habitat types and their requirements are alike. Parosphromenus come from highly acidic peat swamps, wile Tanichthys come from swiftly-flowing mountain streams and even survive winter here in the Netherlands. For the latter, this is not a big deal. They survive everything. Paros, on the other hand, definitely do not. They probably survive in your tank since you have two of the easier species(but they don’t get nearly as beautiful as when kept well!), but they will not proliferate. One should keep in mind all species of Parosphromenus are severely threatened by human activity. Therefore, emphasis should be on breeding them, not just keeping.

Astonishingly, they are able to get enough food in your tank with two of the most voracious species I know, namely Tanichthys and neon tetras. In most alike cases the paros die from starvation when kept with similar fish.

Especially P. filamentosus is not very hard to breed(for a Parosphromenus, that is) so I strongly recommend setting up a small breeding tank. 20 liters is sufficient. Use RO or rainwater and put in a lot of oak leaves and/or peat to get the pH down to 5 or so. Feed them a lot of live food and with some luck you’ll be able to get some youngs.

How many of both species do you have?

[Ryan P]

Hi,

I originally bought the minnows and tetras to get the tank started. The PH in the tank is about 5.5. So I am doing everything in favor of the paros and chocolate gouramis over the other fish. I plan to give them away shortly. I use RO water.

At feeding time, I feed the minnows on one end of the tank, and the paros on the other end. This helps the paros get the food.

Currently I have 6 of the blue line licorice gouramis, and 2 of the filamentosus, or related to them.

Today, finally, my chocolate gouramis spawned. The male has them in his mouth. I am hoping there are fry later on.

Ryan

[Peter Finke]

Bartan is completely right. It’s a very bad thing to establish a community tank for Paros. At least one shoukld select conveniant companios (as Boraras spec. for instance, but not Tanichthys, Catfish or even “Neons”. It’s of no use to do this “for the beginning” only. This is just the standard thinking for the standard type of aquarium with a thick layer of stony gravels in order to plant the usual plants. They will change the water values completely; you cannot estanblish a backwater aquarium for long with such a gravel and plants like Echinodorus spec. and Hygrophila difformis.
The second bad thing is to mix different species of Paros, because the females are very similar. In some cases you will be unable to keep them apart, and the males will possibly or probably also. Of course this is done by the normal petshops already. But the first mistakes happen there. We have several cases where they sold the wrong females, and now the aquarists complain about seeing no spawning or – worse – do see spawning but there are weak larvae developing from the eggs doomed to death.
It is wrong to think Paros to be very delicate and difficult. If given the right water with 10 to 60 Microsiemens/cm (I doubt that your RO-water is beyond 100, at least for long) and the fish are healthy you can establish a small tank with peat and beech leaves on the ground, wood from fresh peat-cuttings, a big Catappa-leaf at the back side, a little quantity of Javamoss, Ceratopteris at the water surface and – most important – one or two small caves with horizontal roof, and give the fish immediately in it. Normally I practise it like this and there are no losses. In cases I doubt it because of the condition of the fish I wait for three or four days using that fine Easy Life-milk from Zeolith first. That is undoubtedly a helpful invention but it’s the only thing that I still buy at the Zoo-shops.
The whole aquarium literature and trade is completely fixed on the normally structured medium big or big tank with all the things the industry want to sell in the meantime. There is nearly no explanation of the different type that a blackwater tank must be. Besides, the water must not be dark or “black”. It must contain humic substances but mostly it can well be clear, perhaps a little yellowish or slightly tea-coloured.

[bartian]

Cool your chocos spawned! You’re on the right way then. If you do like Peter says you’ll probably be able to spawn the paros also, which would be even better than chocos.

[Ryan P]

I put the other fish in a separate tank. My second question is what do members here use to determine water PH? Currently, all the kits I can find do not go below 6.0. I am sure my water is closer to 5 as I use RO and add a product by Seachem to stabilize it at 5.0.

Thanks,

Ryan

[bartian]

I use a drop test from Sera, which goes to pH 4,5…

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