Tom’s Bucket Of Mud – Paro. sp. ‘sentang’

[Lisbeth]

This is the coolest aquarium I’ve seen in a long time! But how does it work for Paros without cover glass? Is the air warm enough (ore humid enough?) On the surface?

[Peter Finke]

Lisbeth, licorice gouramis have no special relations to the water surface. In nature, they live mostly in deeper regions (around one meter). They own a perfect labyrinth but the do not use it for the most time because the live in running waters not brightly lighted (below the shading cover of tops of the rainforest’s trees). Therefore oxygen is no problem. Even in the aquarium they don’t use their labyrinth normally; Foersch precluded the surface by a cover of glass and the fish showed no sign of discomfort over weeks; they never wanted to fetch atmospheric air. This is the same what we observe. Only in stress situations they could be forced to use their labyrinth, and then they do it. But again, they withdraw from the surface very quickly. Therefore, you cannot compare them to other labyrinths that are fish bound to the water-surface. Paros are not.
An that is the reason, too, why they nearly never leap. I never lost a Paro by leaping out of the water. If the milieu is right they live near the bottom or in the middle of the water near their small caves but seldom at the surface. And remember: Most of the natural caves are old leaves on the ground or somewhere between plants in the middle of the water. They actively avoid the surface. Maybe they have an innate idea of a kingfisher or a heron. For a Paro’s male accidentally hit by a sunbeam that penetrated the foliage of the rainforest will brightly reflect it by the phosphorescence of its finnage. Good for bird, bad for fish. So the fish have accomodated to that.

[Lisbeth]

Of course, I never thought of that before, that my paros never actually go up to the surface! A little embarrassed here now 🙂

Thanks for a good answer!

[Tom Black]

Well, the tank is now roughly a year old, still happily more or less self sustaining and has turned into an absolute jungle. I’m quite happy to leave it do it’s thing really, so everything is pretty messy, but some pics –

In the process of setting up a seperate spawning tank for the Paros, so hopefully there’ll be some news there in the coming weeks.

[Tom Black]

A few thoughts a year in… For starters the transition between underwater and immersed growth is a bit weak, they do still look like plants in pots stuck to the side… I’m planning a major rescape sometime in the next month in order to build a proper island for the plants to grow on, and to remove a rock that I think is adding to the water hardness.

I am also taking the risk of gradually lowering the water hardness through water changes. This might upset the plants a bit and reduce the stability of the water parameters, but I do feel the need to bring the conditions closer in line to what the fish in the tank prefer. I think as long as I do things gradually (as with everything in this tank!) then it should be OK.

The alternative would be to move the Paros and Boraras across to the new nano cubes, but there’s no way I could keep them in a self-sustaining fashion by doing that. I really hope to be able to get the Paros breeding one way or another, as otherwise all I’m doing is contributing to the consumption of an endangered species.

I think the other important thing to highlight is how slow the development of this tank has been… it’s taken a year to get to the point that a high tech solution would reach in a matter of weeks (plant growth wise). However, the upside of this is that things in the tank really are starting to look properly wild… I’ve got mosses that I never even knew were in the tank creeping across wood and stone, and the mulm has just reached the point where my hydrocotyles are throwing out roots for the first time, instead of just spreading with runners. The whole ecosystem is still not in balance after a year – the last 2 weeks have seen an explosion in the Hyella azteca population that I thought had died out completely when I added them way back in the summer.

It’s not a style of tank for the impatient, and even I sometimes struggle to resist the urge to mess around with it or (hardest of all), not chuck an extra hundred fish in!

[Peter Finke]

Big Tom, it’s a fine thing that you let us participate in your thoughts, accompanied by those jungle-like pictures. I am well on your side when you oppose your way of keeping a beautiful aquarium to the usual high-tech type, and I can understand very well the problem of bringing the needs of the plants into a balance with the needs of the fish. In standard aquaria this is much less a problem because you are using tap water with a higher degree of solved minerals and a pH not necessarily as low as it is needed for Parosphromenus. You can use stronger lighting and feed the plants with special nutrients. All that is nearly forbidden if keeping (and perhaps) breeding black-water fish properly, since the activity of the plants would be much too high and the water conditions would become rather instabile. So your tank is not only aesthetically wonderful but also a valuable test type of a low tech tank for fish which cannot stand the usual high tech conditions. But is nevertheless a dream landscape of an underwater jungle.
We wait and see in which direction it will develop. And it’s a good idea to establish some small tanks additionally for breeding that fish. One could not exclude the possibility of one or another young that survives in that big tank, if the water is not too hard. The eggs of the Parosphromenus are very delicate and don’t stand an osmotic pressure that is too high for them. But maybe the water values are just at the border of acceptability, and then there might be some suprises nevertheless.

[Mike Hu]

Hi Tom,

Yet again you have show some fantastic pictures and I pleased that your tank is still the inspiration that it is even a year later.

Can I ask you something about your substrate? I notices that you used a John Innes compost with a sand cap. Is this the Walstad method that I’ve also read about?

I’ve been debating whether to get use something like TMC’s aquagro nutrasoil which is good for plants and can help to reduce ph but its just so darn expensive.

Does your substrate lower ph? Is yours a low cost method?

Thanks

Mike

[Tom Black]

Hi Mike,

Yes, the tank is essentially a Walstad type setup with added riparian plants. The substrate was very cheap, about £10 in total for the soil and sand (compared to at least £100 for the same coverage of one of the branded aquarium plant soils). I actually use ADA Amazonia in my smaller tanks where the cost is not prohibitive… it has the advantage of good aesthetics, being easy to work and having a good particle size to prevent anaerobic spots. However, normal soil is just as good for growing plants really.

Many soils will lower pH, however you need to check this before planting… for example I have recently learned that John Innes number 3 contains added lime, which can raise pH and hardness dramatically. So worth testing some before hand – I have heard that Miracle Grow aquatic compost is good (I think Walstad uses this often). But not too expensive to buy a couple of different types to test, if you have a garden then you can always use unsuitable ones somewhere else!

As always, unless you mineralise it first you should also expect ammonia to leach from any soil for up to a month after it is submerged.

[Mike Hu]

Hi Tom,

Just did some research on John Innes compost and there seems to be a recipe called JOHN INNES CUTTING COMPOST which is :
1 Loam
2 Peat
1 Sand
No added fertiliser

This seems like a good natural substrate with no added minerals or lime and the peat should keep ph down as it decomposes into humics.

Any opinion? I reckon about 1.5 to 2 inches of this with an inch of sand.

[Tom Black]

Yeah that looks good. I would still test a little bit in a bucket or cup for a couple of days to check how it affects the water. Basically you want whichever soil you can find that has the least amount of limestone, nitrate and phosphate and preferably without many bark chips and other large organic particles. Pond soils tend to be a good bet too.

I forgot to mention that I also mixed my compost about 50/50 with sand to keep the system quite lean, then capped with pure sand.

[Tom Black]

I have had a bit of a change with this tank now… the water parameters simply were not right for Paros, so I am moving them to a new tank. Inhabitants are now 5 Yunnanilus sp. ‘rosy’, 8 Danio erythromicron and 3 Dario hysginon (and the otos are still in there from before).

So not really relevant to the paro project any more, but I thought one last update would be OK!

How things look after tearing down and moving the tank, and replanting:

[Mike Hu]

Hey Tom,

Sorry to see your original project didn’t work out.

Please update on your paro breeding project though. Always look forward to your good work.

Cheers,

Mike

[Bill Little]

Tom – Paros or no Paros that tank is truly magnificent. I can’t believe this is a photo of the tank after you broke it down and replanted lt.

[Aleksandr Egorov]

Hi Tom!
How things stand today? How Parosphromenus?
In the most recent Video I do not see Paros.

[Tom Black]

Now there is a coincidence – a reply to this topic after nearly 2 years inactivity just as I come back to the forum!

Now, this tank did not work out as a Paro breeding project due to issues with water parameters. I still have two of the original Paros in a retirement tank, but unfortunately I lost the females before I could have a proper attempt at breeding. However, I have now just turned two of my 25l tanks back into a Paro project. One is stocked with 4 currently unidentified young Paros which had been languishing in my local shop for many weeks. The second will be stocked with one species from this list –

[i]Parosphromenus anjunganensis
Parosphromenus linkei
Parosphromenus ornaticauda
Parosphromenus parvulus
Parosphromenus opallios
Parasphromenus filamentosus[/i]

These are what are available from my importer, I have yet to decide which one – any suggestions?

In the mean time, I have been breeding Sawbwa resplendens, Danio erythromicron and Petruichthys sp ‘Rosy’, which are the current occupants of the ‘Bucket’ (among others).

Here is a recent video of the current status of the tank for those interested –

[video]http://vimeo.com/84620540[/video]

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