sentang

[Ellisiv Huseklepp]

I have to my joy discovered that my group of Parosphromenus spec. sentang have grown from seven to at least eleven! :woohoo:

But what shall I register my breeding as? Sentang is not a described species is it? Is Bintan the nearest?

[Peter Finke]

You should list your fish as spec. Sentang from Jambi/Sumatra. It’s the most sold form of our genus during the recent years. So I guess that you received them by buying them in a shop, not from a private breeder. The aquarium trade only rarely imports Parosphromenus but if they do it’s only a very few species easily to be caught in great numbers. Mostly all are called “deissneri” which is nonsense. But people have dificulties to differentiate between the different forms. All imports are wild caught, young of the last breeding period. And Sumatra is the formost exploited area as Paros are concerned. And the hitherto undescribed spec. Sentang is quantitatively speaking the most and easiest caught and therefore the most sold. Unfortunately it is hitherto undescribed. But it is obviously very near to P. bintan as you rightly suppose. We cannot say nowadays if it is identical with bintan or whether it is a subspecies or a semispecies deverloping to a good species or what else. It is reasonable to keep it apart.
Since long we want to describe the most important of the hitherto undescribed forms on our homepage (“Other forms”). But it is difficult for different reasons. Nevertheless I hope that we succeeed with the most wanted and most sold forms in the nexts months. The spec. Sentang is certainly among them.

[Ellisiv Huseklepp]

Thank you for an interesting and informative answer. I Actually recived them private, and half of them were born under her care.

I also have a group imported as deissneri, but maybe that is wrong?

[Peter Finke]

The name “deissneri” is definitely wrong. The real deissneri have been never traded commercially up to the present day. It is much too complicated and expensive for the fish trade to go to the island of Bangka only for this species. And the catchers don’t know the differences at all. Often, they throw all fish together in one box if at the first place the result was only poor. So they like the places where they find spec. Sentang; there are many of them.
You can see the peculiarities of male true deissneri easily in our species account.
Good luck and try to breed your spec. Sentang (and the others too, of course)! Could you describe the males or better make some photos?

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