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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 🙂Clearly parosphromenus, but still difficult to say excact species, – I am not sure. But the last picture is likely a male, and the first could well be a female.
Could be nagyi, actually could maybe well be, based a little bit on the fact that it seems the caudal fin of the male has a colourless band at the end. Edit: I am not at all sure about that 🙂 .. it might not be significant at all. But the male does have quite a broad white band in the caudal, and seems to me the ventral fins are quite short, – that might be helpfull in id’ing.
But again before the fish really feels good its very difficult.They look rather thin to me, -they might have been long underway, with no proper food. So feed careful but well 🙂
I dont want to be scaring anyone, but the top one in the photo with two fish, looks a bit greyish, – keep a look out for things like odinium, – …. it may just be the light, – but just in case.
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.
Hi
Jacob is right, the one in the background is a parosphromenus, – I am pretty sure of that. You cant actually say its not a nagyi, because in subdued coloration nagyi is as black and white striped as all the rest, even the males.
But the other one, not a paro 🙂 .. its a betta of some sort. Interesting species though maybe 🙂 though I am no expert on bettaes
🙂 Thats quite interesting. Good work !
Maybe the temperature is quite significant, – I at least remember having had the experience that it took several days for one raft to develop.
In fact, you know, photoes might be helpfull in both determining the species, (which however is difficult if it is only females :() but also in determining sex
I think it depends qiute a bit on which species it is. Some species develop characteristic fin colouration really early, like the parvulus, others it takes a lot longer to figure out, – p. linkei being one.
I have several species, and f.ex the species such as p. nagyi and p. harveyi – here I think both sexes looking quite similar up to a certain point, – but they become rather big before you are able to see any differences. P. nagyi as I see it, if you have more young males together some of these might ‘hide’ their true identity and appear ‘female’, but most often you will be able to see a very faint coluration in the caudal fin. Very few instances you cannot see this and this is when fish you feared were all female eventually show up to have one or more males in between. But in my opinion this is rather rare, – but it can happen.
p. harveyi – here I see, when the fish are mature, the males will show clear coluration – also when more males together. Around 5-6 months, or when they have reached grown size. Then they will show the coluration.But its difficult I know. If you have rather big fish (close to normal size) and they all seem clear in the fin, – theres is after all quite a big risk that they are all females 🙁
But you are doing the right thing, – provide them with optimal tank setting, – where they feel good, – feed well, provide a few caves, – then if there are males they will surely quickly ‘reveal’ themselves.I am very glad to hear your good experience, – thats mine too, that these larvae are very good when you want to count your fish 🙂 ..also the fry. It brings the fish out.
But I was just thinking, – actually you cant really say that it takes two days, because you dont know when your particular raft was produced, – and how long it had been in the water before you took it 🙂 …
It may have been there for many days really 🙂Thank you, Kevin, – so now they have a name ‘rafts’ 🙂
And thats really interesting, Peter, what Bernd have told you, – in fact in may have been him that gave me the tip long time ago. But I never heard about putting them in the fridge, that must be tried of course.
Of course, I was thinking yesterday that if you leave them in whatever bucket or container you have, they will develop there as well for you to catch, – and I do also get lots o small by just using the net, but often then also get a lot of other things along, leaves etc. So I found it a lot easier to have them seperated.
I once put one in the tank, the only thing that wasnt so good about this, was that the fish probably ate the tiny larvaes before they were so big that I could actually see them, so it was hard to tell what happened 🙂
When they just hatch they are in a way almost too small for adult fish and you get too little ‘value’ out of it 🙂I dont have any tips regarding how to get them to surface quicker – except maybe to have more buckets 🙂
I have a few buckets – four regular and the small pools of water that can occur anywhere in the garden, so when I tjeck them I go from one to the other, and by the time I come back to no one bucket the larvaes have surfaced again. …
In that way I dont have to stay and wait untill they come up 🙂
Or I do other things in the meantime, just having a small container for the catched larvaes that I can continue to fill up and everytime I pass during the day I get the net ..I am not sure how many days the ‘thing’ takes before it develops, thats something I yet need to find out, but now you might be able to learn that
God luck with the ‘hunting’In this image you can actually see that ‘the thing’ consist of eggs, and I have found that if I take this or more, and gently fishes them up from the water they are found in together with water from this same source, into a smaller container and then leave it there after some days I have a small container full of tiny tiny black mosquito larvaes. You can also see some of these in the first picture.
I will put in a picture here to show more of the container I keep it in, and there you might also get an impression of the actual size it has. Its just a small ceramic flower pot. These egg things are quite small and I had never noticed these before. One such thing would be maybe half a cm long
It does however take some days before the tiny mosquito larvaes are actually big enough to be fed to grown paroes 🙂 – but thats not a problem …
I had some problems with the upload of the pictures, but now they finally show in our species page og P. pahuensis 🙂
As of today – 17 of june 2013 – I have removed this security setting, – because I have now found another well working solution.
For the time being though, we still keep up the procedure of all new users having to be approved by admin on registration. This may also in time not be needed, however it is only of little inconvenience, – so I hope it is okay for now.
And any new member / user can now write in forum without having to wait for approval.
