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Hello everyone,
Awesome pictures indeed. 🙂 As for the display, my bintan males for example usually start with by the book head down position but then they twist just anyhow to show themselves in front of the female. It seems to me that it is very dependent on where most of the light comes from and they twist in a such a way that they could use the light when the female is changing position or direction versus them. Even the head down position is always deflected couple degrees from the females position more or less so that the colors are reflected from the best angle. At least it seems to be that way.
Hello everyone,
I would like to add some notes to what Peter already said. Fast growing plants that would be able to clear the water in some less extreme setups, would probably change the water pH in to their favor. Many plants are able to change the surrounding environment in thin layers around their leaves and roots to manage the uptake of nutrients. That is the first problem. Maintaining low pH and low germ concentrations would be compromised.
The other problem that using some soil stuffed with nutrients would bring is that even if you are able to use some great soil with very high sorption capacity, the nutrients will always leach out of it. The sorption itself and of course releasing of the ions too is often dependent on the concentration of the specific ions in the surrounding medium. So simply said, you will not be able able to maintain low conductivity water with extremely low concentrations of calcium and magnesium and plenty other substances too. But your fast growing plants need them, you become a slave of the Liebig’s law of the minimum. I think Peter already said that, I just wanted to emphasize it.
The third problem is closely related to this. Paros live in flowing water that percolates through the masses of the organic matter. From this point of view, it is a very fresh rainwater at the very start of it’s cycle just stored in and slowly released from the peat like matter after getting down from the skies. If you do not make the water changes, something else than nitrogen may build up in the tank. Substances that we do not measure or we are completely unaware of. We know that there are substances that influence population densities and growth of animals in closed systems. What water changes do is that they simulate the natural flow and dilute such substances.
Well actually all that Paros and many fish from similar blackwater and very acidic environments need is what everyone here should already be trying to get in to the water. Of course we are far from being able to imitate the complex of substances that is present in their natural environments, but we do what we can. I always recomend to try a little harder and mix couple types of extracts like alder cones, Terminalia catapa leaves and beech or oak leaves on the bottom of the tank + I add Aquahum that does a great job of adding sulable salts of humic acids that are otherwise insoluable and hard to get in to the water in useful form. I do not think we can do much better preparing water. Adding other stuff like vitamins and different “special” water treatments is often counterproductive as it creates better conditions for unwanted organisms in the water. Not to mention that 99% of these are simple chemicals that everyone could buy for cents and you may be need them to treat tap water for normal tanks but you just do not need any of it for blackwater tanks.
Where we can do much better is food. You can get so many great nutrients including probiotics, vitamins and high levels of unsatureted and polysatured fatty acids as well as aminoacids and other stuff in to the food. Many live foods can be literally stuffed with all these. Of course it often takes some effort but you do not have to work with the substances as such. Sometimes even use of simple stuff like algae, yolks, basic fats that everyone has in the kitchen (rape oil) and yeast can do a great job. I hope to translate some articles about this topic in the future + add some guides and methods I use. Just please be patient with me. I have basicly zero spare time now and explaining such stuff in non native language well takes time. And it all gets worse with me being such a stickler 😀
No problem, glad to help. If you really want to get the most of the peat, it is best to use it in some cilinder and slowly drop the water over the peat. Do not use just pure RO water, add some tap water just to get to like 5 ppm or so, this way you get some ions that the peat (or the humic acids more precisely) will exchange for H+ and you get more acidic water than if you are only leaching the substances out. Also if you are preparing the extract, use tap water to do so, it will have the same effect. You should be able to get to pH 4 or sometimes even lower without adding some anorganic acids. But I never tried any granules, so I can not promise it will work this well. 🙂
Pavel
Hey there,
I am definitely not nearly as experienced as Bernd with different Paros but I would leave the pH as it is for now . Even thought I have my fish under more extreme conditions, it is just because it is simple for me to prepare such water. If you want to have more stable and lower pH you can try to combine the alder cones with Terminalia catapa leaves extract and or oak leaves (combination of substances is usually more powerful) or if you find out later that you need extremely low pH, you can use peat (but you have to work with the ion exchange power of it 🙂 or some acid. If there is some tap water in the tank, you can still continue with the pure RO water changes and make the conductivity lower as the concentration of unwanted ions could still be a little too high.
Thank you very much Peter, I hope it is the case with Oodinium. As Andrzej posted expected end of treatment, it also leads me to think they are dealing with some parasitic infection. I am glad that Ruinemans are different and I wish there were more different competent companies.
if they recover I would still give it a try. On the other hand I doubt that any wholesaler would treat the fish the right way, they are most likely kept in tap water and without adjusting the environment to their needs I do not think they have much of a chance. I have no idea why people in trade always try to harden such kind of fish and I have the same experience with South American species too. traders put them 8° DGH water, pH 7-8 and than wonder why they are dying. RO for those couple of tanks with these fish would cost them close to nothing and only a little effort. Of course I do not mean to offend anyone in Ruinemans if they are different. I know from my own experience, that from the epidemiological point of view it is very hard to limit all the transition vectors but I beleave that species from very acid black waters are very well protected by simulating their environment well.
Sad news, even worse is that if they recover, we are still going to be in vain about the damage caused by the illness and may be by the treatment too.
Hello,
in case even small amount of NaCl was used, it will bring the conductivity over 1mS (1000µS) In case more of the substance is used, some EC meters may even show the highest possible value for measuring or error. For adaptation take water from the tank and pour out 2/3rds of the water from the bag. Than use aeration hose and throttle it to drop the tank water in to the bag. When it is full repeat the process until you get down to some normal Paro values. Also be carefull if you are using peat to acidify the water in your Paro tanks, most of the peats will release some ammonium in concentration that are harmfull in acidic environment but could have disastrous effect when mixed with high pH value water in the bag. I would strongly recommend using clear acidic (use any doable acid) water first and start adding water from the tank later when you are sure the pH dropped below 7. That is just in case. Fingers crossed for everyone with ornaticaudas. I hope I will be able to get some too.
Hello and welcome to the P-P. You may find all the information here: https://www.parosphromenus-project.org/en/prachtgurami-aquaristics.html
Look for the different topics on the left side of the page and try to get some basic clue. It is only couple pages and you will know all you need. Of course feel free to post questions if you need explanations and/or further advice.
When you are done with the basics, have a look at species. Paros are very often mislabeled and you could very well have different species. Having P. anjunganensis would be great, but we would need some good pictures of adult males to be able to tell if they are the abovementioned species.
Have a nice time discovering the world of Paros 🙂that really looks like eggs. I have not tried to watch Paros eggs under the microscope yet. The only single fact I hate about all the labyrinth fish is exactly this. The eggs are white from the start and you can not see trough it. With most eggs of other species, we could tell without any problems if they are fertilized. But from what I see on the pics, I am unable to tell if the thick layer around the egg is just a chorion and not enough light or if it is perivitelline space, but you should be able to see if there are some blastomers and space filled with perivitelline fluid, more space around and close to blastomers first. I would expect the fluid to be clear, never seen it look otherwise. Could you check after couple hours how they look again? That could be very interesting for your work and for us too. We should be able to gather some data on the egg developement in order to check if things are going right. I agree with Peter, even with no males in the tank, females that have good times and produce plenty of eggs may relase those on their own, I have been told the same with Bettas couple times already and other fish too.
Yes it is sad, but given the water parameters and Rafaels preparation for the introduction I would say it is just unhappy coincidence. I am sure it will be fine net time 🙂
If you have peat granules on the ground he could still very well be there hiding. To find out there are no Paros in the tank I think you have to use a net a poor out every single particle and wash the tank. I moving fry to other tank and as long as there is single piece of anything they will be under it hiding. Having a look over the tank does not really help I think.
