[David Jones]

Thank you and very interesting indeed. I’ve sent this photo and another to your personal address – these and a prior email to you with some photos attached – so hope you are receiving them? Please use the photos as you like. And, if you have any further info on the P. sp. Palangan, please let me know – such as do any photos of that form exist?

Much appreciated!

[David Jones]

Two weeks update – daily 1L water replacements with RO water treated with alder cones has yielded water parameters of 100µS/cm, 5.6 pH and temps between 23-26C. The warmer temperatures have arrived this past week and thus the increase in water temp. I will try to keep water temps from rising above 26C.
I will try to lower conductivity and pH even lower over the next week. The fish continue to look healthy and eat well, so some luck with the acclimation process to better water levels.

Here a photo showing now more humic substances in the water from alder cones, and a nice couple. I wonder how long it will be before any signs of breeding show? I understand this is a challenging species to work with, so all the more luck is needed for my first try with breeding paros!

[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/673/oQ74v8.jpg[/IMG]

[David Jones]

Here is a photo of the colorful male – I post it here as it shows the caudal fin rays clearly and there appears to be some extension of the middle caudal fin ray(s) which is a characteristic of sumatranus. Perhaps, as yet, not fully grown out but present at this sub-adult stage in any case.

[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/901/Cyqemr.jpg[/IMG]

[David Jones]

Hello Yankadi, I have not used carrot juice for microworms, but I have used small amounts of the pulp from juicing carrots, kale, spinach and beets to feed grindal worms. They thrive on it and I have fed the worms to smaller soft water fishes without any signs of problems. I have not tried this with my paros yet. I cannot foresee any reason why this would not be good for the paros, but that is speculation, as I have read nothing on this anywhere.

[David Jones]

One week update: Daily 1L replacements with RO water have brought levels from ~420ms to 165ms, and 7.6pH to 6.4pH, temps ~22C. Over the course of this week I’ll go for ~40ms and 5.0pH.

The male here is looking very good – I can’t wait to see him fully grown! He has claimed a cocco cave on one side of the tank as his space…
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/908/Rhgb6F.jpg[/IMG]

The group dynamic has changed from the fishes schooling around together to now more settled in and little hiding places being claimed as territories. The females have been doing the most –

Here two females squabble over a cocco cave…
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/538/NmxQSi.jpg[/IMG]

And the winner is this female – she has claimed two hiding places as her own on the other side of the tank, about 1/3 the tank space on one side…possibly the dominant fish of them all. I think this may be good, as I could select the dominant male above with this dominant female as a potential breeding pair.
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/912/nsCHyb.jpg[/IMG]

All the group are feeding well, nauplii the basic food, along with occasional grindals. I will set up some moina cultures soon. (I do not have access to mosquito larvae this time) So hopefully nauplii, moina and grindals (sparingly) will suffice for food.
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/661/rMMF9m.jpg[/IMG]

Helene, I first read your reply (too late one evening) as saying you thought these did not look like sumatranus – rereading I see you thought they do look like them, and I would have to agree they look quite similar to sumatranus. I found this site http://parosphromenusphotograph.web.fc2.com/sumatranus.html with great photos of paros! I think my fish show several similarities with the fish pictured and labeled as P. sumatranus, including the golden scales along the lateral area – really nice feature. As per Peter, the original collecting area(s) of the fish described as sumatranus have been destroyed, then these fish would possibly have to come from some other location, and thereby, understandably might show variations from the original sumatranus form. That they are close to or a variant of sumatranus seems clear, but again, we’ll have to wait until they (hopefully) display.

[David Jones]

Thank you Helene and Peter for your much valued and knowledgeable considerations of these fishes – and, good news! – I have at least two pairs with which to work for a better chance at breeding them :cheer:. I will, for the time being, allow the fishes to further settle in, adjust the water parameters (now at pH 6.7 and TDS 140ppm) to proper levels over the next week or so with small replacements of RO water each day. It will be fascinating to watch these sub-adults grow out and develop. Any further developments I will post here and hopefully all goes smoothly.

[David Jones]

Here are a few more photos, and I need some expert eyes to help out. I originally thought I had only one male out of the 6 fish. But in photographing them I think there is the possibility that I might have two males. Please look at the photos below and what do you think about male2? Is it male or colorful female. I hope the photos are good enough to help with the ID. Many thanks!

Male 1 for comparison
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/540/GhfngN.jpg[/IMG]

Male 2 – is this a male or colorful female?
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/909/vp74wo.jpg[/IMG]

Male 2(bottom) and female (top) for comparison
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/913/EDgUkd.jpg[/IMG]

And definite female for comparison
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/901/dftUEc.jpg[/IMG]

It would great if I have two males, and I hope so. Although not the most colorful paro, I really like the metallic gold on the bodies and their bright red eyes!- I’ve never knew that paros could get the yellow-gold color on their bodies – a really nice surprise.

Thanks for the help 🙂

[David Jones]

Thanks, Bill, for your compliment. 🙂 As for the photo methods – the fish actively swim about the entire aquarium all the time, so it is a matter of waiting until they move the the front of the aquarium and then I can snap a few photos before they get shy and move off. I have read that sumatranus are very shy, and these are sensitive to any movement in front of the aquarium, but they really do not hide all the time by any stretch. So, kind of lucky that way. The tank is quiet (no filter), not too brightly lit and, I guess, arranged so that the fishes feel somewhat safe to move about.

My camera is a mid-range Nikon P-510, nothing special at all. It just has a fairly good macro capability and enough flexibility in manual adjustments to work for my limited photo skills. I would recommend it to any aquarist for fish photography who does not expect top quality results and does not want to spend top $$ for equipment. Maybe one of these days I’ll move up, but for now this one will do. I’ll post more photos as I can. In fact a few more just now.

[David Jones]

Thank you very much for your welcome, Helene! I have enjoyed and learned so much from you posts, photos and videos!
Yes I hope to breed them and see the courtship dance (at least) – some portion of luck would be a welcome addition to the endeavor. I will leave it to the experienced paro keepers to make the final call on ID – it is exciting that maybe they are something really different. But, as you say, we will wait and see.
These were not quite “bought in a shop” but obtained from a gentleman who sells many fishes. He got in perhaps over 40 animals from an importer, is my guess, but no further information is available from him. However this is a lucky find and Bill might be getting some as well. I will do my best to follow the instructions in PP forum to provide the proper conditions keeping and breeding. I will post more photos for sure – probably too many…as I enjoy photography as a hobby. The fish so far do seem to be doing well, eating and swimming about actively. So far so good.

[David Jones]

Yes, thanks for pointing out the additional characteristics of sumatranus. As the fish I have grow I will try to document any changes in coloration etc. If I am successful in getting them to the point where they breed, It will be interesting to see their courtship behavior, especially if they have the typical sumatranus way. For now I continue to do small water changes with RO water to lower the values to the desired levels. They continue to school around together peacefully and are now feeding on BBS so that is good news. Also, Bill Little got in touch with me and we had a good correspondence.

[David Jones]

Here two more larger photos of the male – attempting to show the dorsal marking – more of an extension of the pigments along the dorsal area of the body – a kind of “apostrophe”, rather than a well formed ocelli or spot? Hope this helps with ID and sorry for not so crisp images.

[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/661/LDBn6K.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/913/aXzesZ.jpg[/IMG]

The seller got back to me with “no info on the paros other than they came from Indonesia.”

Regards,
David

[David Jones]

Many thanks, Peter, for your message, and helping to ID these fishes. And surprise that they may be something other than P. sumatranus – they would be interesting enough were they simply sumatranus! I must say that, although the photos fail to capture it, there does appear to be some kind of dark spot or marking on the rear portion of the dorsal fin, but it is fairly indistinct and not as pronounced as some of the classic photos of P. sumatranus show. If I can get a better photo of the male showing that marking, I will post it – it may or may not help with the ID.

Also, I will try to find out more information about the origin of these paros, but they do come from the commercial trade, so not certain if sure information can be given. Either way I’ll give an update here.

Regards,
David

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