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I have 2 males and 2 females in a 5 gallon. One pair is out in the open and showing some courtship, with displays and chasing, and the female’s color noticeably different than usual and similar to pictures I’ve seen of breeding females. The other pair is mostly invisible- the male came out twice from a secluded hiding place to chase the other male away (and even made some postures at the female before it retreated back into hiding.) Other than that he has been nowhere to be found, hiding in a secluded area of the tank that has roots, java moss and layers of almond leaves. I haven’t seen the other female at all since this morning when they were all out swimming in a school after the lights went on.
Is it normal for a female to stay hidden while breeding is taking place? If the male is mostly staying hidden as well maybe that means they are in the process of breeding right now?
Edit- the female is now out in the open. Maybe hiding for long periods of time is more normal behavior than the schooling and glass-pacing I saw for the weeks preceding this.Yes, I think hiding and being ‘invisible’ is somewhat more normal behavior for paros than swimming happily around, – BUT it is also so that a breeding pair will be dominant in a tank and if there are other paroes these will stay away as best they can, – they will be chased. Paroes can cope – even in such a small tank, but it is definitely not ideal, – and its also a ‘waste’ 🙂 of a potential extra breeding couple.
If the male has eggs, yes, he will stay hidden for long periods. But the female in this couple will chase other fish away, so your nr. 2 male and female is probably not allowed anywhere, and may have to stay somewhere in the back of the tank.
I would really suggest to you that you seperate these fish, now that it is obvious you have got a potential breeding couple. Also because if fry is developed, non parent fish will be a threath to these.
I know its difficult because you might not want to split everything apart, – but unless the male is actually having eggs in a nest, – in which case it is not good to do anything of course. But if not, if you can get the courting pair into another tank, they will quickly reestablish the courting behaviour. And the other couple may be able to come more forward.
I really do think 5 gallons is too small for two pairs of paroes.
Yes, I definitely don’t want to keep them like this for long and have problems with fry predation and crowding. I have a separate empty 5 gallon for one of the pairs, it’s not set up because I didn’t expect them to turn into adults this fast.
I will leave the dominant pair in the current tank and put the extra pair in the new tank.
I did see the dominant female bullying the weaker female. Noticing lots of chasing and aggression, so it will be good to separate the other pair soon.
Sounds like a good plan.
The thing is, once the not dominant pair is separated they will probably start courting as well 🙂Female paroes with a ‘husband’ can be quite bullying :).
I had two female harveyi in a tank with one male, and it actually took a long time for me to realize there were two females in there, because one of them lived in the back of the tank in one corner and never came forward.
Food must have gotten her way anyway because she was fine and fit, but not allowed to swim freely around. She is now in another tank with a male 🙂It’s exactly as Helene said: 5 gallons are good for one pair but too small for two.
A Paro-pair needs extremely little breeding and behavioural space (although of course they use more of it in nature. We talk about the aquarium situation). Allan Brown bred most species in small tanks of 5 liters (much less than 5 gallons). I do in 10-liter-tanks. Clearly, the non-guarding female uses much more surrounding space in nature, driving alien fish and shrimps away. But in the tank a very small space is absolutely possible (not for quindecim which is a strong and quite big species; in that case even my 10 liters are a bit too small).
But in the moment a third fish is present or even a second pair, the situation changes completely. Here, the space needed resembles the situation in nature. Otherwise there are constant little combats and arousal; there is no secure space except for the one guarding male. The other three fish do not show a normal behaviour.
So it’s good that you will separate them into two small tanks. (Or one bigger, but then you probably won’t experience young growing up).
One male is guarding an anubias leaf that has a bubble nest under it- now I’m editing this post to say he swam away and ate artemia so maybe he is not guarding anything other than an empty bubblenest. The female seems like it’s hiding from him so must not be ready to breed.
Also editing to shorten this to the question I previously wanted to ask- how are rotifers cultured? Do you use green water or do they feed on detritus and can you establish a population in a tank that already has copepods and other competitors? Or is it typically just daily harvesting of rotifers and targeted feeding of the fry?
Also sorry I never used the thank you feature, other people are using it and I never did after having asked so many questions!
Culturing rotifiers in the breeding tank itself is sometimes possible but mostly a highly uncertain Thing. You should in any case set up a separate culture.
In Germany, breeders mostly use a slight yeast suspension for boosting the rotifiers.
It’s still easier to set up a Paramecium culture. The most easy method is taking some small dried material of bananas. But it needs about ten days for Paramecium to develop. They need very little food; good is a drop of milk, mostly less.
Vinegar eels are also taken rather early. And if you are lucky to get cysts of the very tiny Artemia of the Californian lakes, the young Paros might tale them from the very beginning. But quite freshly hatched only. Two days old they are much too big already.
The male is guarding eggs, I confirmed. I ordered san francisco brine shrimp and have rotifer cysts on the way.
There is an aquabid listing for paramecium multimicronucleatus. It says it’s a large paramecium. Still appropriate for the fry?
http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?foodl&1375166664I also contacted this local supplier of paramecia for labs growing zebrafish. It is expensive , maybe the previous cheap culture is good enough.
http://www.parameciavap.com/par.htmlI have no experience with that species of paramecium, but I guess it is much too big for young Paros. Normally we use P. caudatum. It is widespread in the world and mostly easy to be raised and fed.
But normally, any rotifiers are preferred to Paramecium since they are soft whereas Paramecium are harder. However, P. caudatum is a good alternative since it could be gained an cultured rather easily (at least in Europe …).
While one pair breeds, the other refuses food. If the only signs of illness are refusing food, losing weight and hiding, what does that mean?
Probably so many potential reasons it’s impossible to answer the question, but I want to try and get them eating, so I ask it anyway.Also, if the unpaired fins of the male are mostly black with blue-green edging this is probably not actually opallios, the red color near the iridescence is pretty obvious if it’s opallios? I have no good camera at the moment.
Take a look at the attached photo. There is plenty of black and blue on the unpaired fins of this male. Depending on the lighting that blue could shift to more of a green. Do you have friends with a good camera? Even some of the new iphones can take pretty good photos for us to examine.
There was a picture on igl.de that is currently unavailable that showed a displaying male, and it had bright red banding right near the blue banding. When the males I have display it is mostly black, maybe opallios also get very dark when displaying but based on the picture I mentioned I would think I would see a little more red. I will have to get a picture up but might not be able to for a day or two.
Jacob, let the exact species identification not be the most interesting question presently. It is difficult even for experts and sometimes impossible even with good photos.
We should learn more from a good description of the behavior, especially the interaction between male and female. And the general color changes of the male and (!) the female!
What are the body positions? Does the male visits a cave already? Is the female more active or more passive?
And Jacob – please don’t be offended by this – wouldn’t it be better you wrote your interesting postings in the American Forum of the project instead of the Global? I don’t know what Bill has to say to this issue. But I think we must push the American Forum a bit (just as the Asian, of course). The American Paro-friends should become more involved in order to establish a real “scene”, small in the beginning but highly motivated and interested. We Europeans read the American Forum too. For we try to help it to develop.
But I admit, Jacob, that there are issues of global interest, and identification is one of them.
I will have to wait for them to breed again and pay closer attention so I can get more useful information for knowing which species it is. Then I can start a thread in the US section about identifying this locally available parosphromenus.
Right now the male is guarding the nest alone and is sometimes leaving it to harass the female. Seems like territoriality and defense and not breeding, though the male is in full color and the female is lighter than usual if not in breeding color.
One fry swam away from the nest and was retrieved by the male. Seems like many fry or partially formed fry (wriggling but immobile) dissappeared, but there is a large quantity of new eggs on the same leaf. He is guarding that one fry or more that I haven’t seen, and some new eggs simultaneously. Or he hid those eggs and moved them but I doubt that.
They’ve shown head down courtship.
Also, the other pair is not eating. They look and act less lively than the pair that bred, and have lost some weight. There are no other signs of sickness other than not eating and somewhat different behavior. Do they stop eating if water conditions are wrong or is it usually from disease? Edit- the male has made a few motions like he ate bbs or tried to eat something off a sponge filter. Still not much eating between the two of them.
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