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:blink: 40 gallons..
I think I am glad I dont have to catch your paros in there, – that is a real problem. So best thing probably to not.
Or if you need to, you will have to have a lot of patience. I am sure that when, as I, you have caught a lot of paros, it actually is possible, even they fly around, – to get them trapped somehow at the frontglas and put a net over them, – but in such a big tank, I think it must be really difficult.If those new ones you got, are wildcaught, that also means that they must have gone through a lot of changes and travel lately, which would make them more delicate.
I often find with paros that I buy wildcaught, – are ‘delicate’, but I alway put that down to stress from the journey and changes in conditions. I often think that I have quite many losses with those fish. But those that settle seem as tough as the ones that have been breed.But again, actually. I know its difficult, because one wants to do all one can to help, – but if you are not certain about whether the fish actually have any condition – odinium – or such, wait untill you are certain.
Dont start medicating before the signs are really there.Often the best cure really is to let the fish regain peace and quiet
how big is the tank ?
Odinium is like a very very fine grey dust on the skin. If developed you might see small dust particles on the pectorial fins or any fin really, – you might see the fish wawe those pectoral fins (not sure about the english name to them, but those on the side :)) more than usual.
Yeah, caching paros can be a nightmare, which is probably why I wouldnt keep them in a bigger tank with other fish 🙂
But, – if I have to catch any paro, what I would do, – if serious – I would slowly rid the whole tank of everything. Just take it up slowly (look for any paro trying to stick to the wood or something.) But if you do it slowly, over one day say, – and leave the tank to settle, so you can see.
Then you can spot the paros, and target them more easily :). If you can get them up to the front glass, its easier to get the net over them, holding the net up against the glass. I know they dart around like … – but normally they do not get hurt.
Once you have a fish in the net (up against the front glass) you can use a little tortlamp to get the paro to move to the back of the net. They dont seem to like the light so they seek inwards).Thats pretty easy :S
I can tell you what I would do – I would really very fast get back some normal low microsiemens and low ph water, put in whatever you have of ketapang leaves or oak leaves, or even you can get some stuff in bottles which actually does the same (not extracts which lowers the ph, but other kinds), and then I would give the paroes (and probably the chokolates as well) higher temperature for a while.
I have used temperatures at 28 with paros that I was worried about, and they normally respond really well to that.I would not at all use any more medication (with the paros). Not unless I was definitely sure there was a positive sign of illness, and a sign I was able to diagnose correctly. Otherwise, if one fish continues to get worse, I would isolate it and see what happened. Because, normally, a sick fish with an uncertain diagnose, – you have to have a strike of luck to cure that, and most often you will end up making more disaster to the whole tank by adding more medication. Medication is really not that easy to handle, mostly it ends up having worse effects than good ones.
And most of the times, – a very sich fish is uncurable anyway. This is not to say that you shouldnt try to save any precious fish, but I am afraid that is my experience. Then rather take care that the rest of the fish, if looking well, do not suffer any by-effects of medication.But I have said it one other time here, and will say again – always keep one of those small bottles with spirohexol, they work really well with sick paros. I had a tank with 3 fish, – they developed some kind of odinium, very heavy attack, and one of them was really bad, and I had really given up on it. But one tablet of spirohexol + one week, they all recovered.
Oh, and dont use salt.
This is my personal opinion, I have no experience with it, never used it, – and would really think it is contradictionary to the waterconditions that paros demand.One question : are they all still in the same tank ??
As for the clouding of the tank, and the fishes starting gasping and wanting to jump out, seems like the medication have sparked an unwanted chemical reaction, – so some kind of intoxication may be what has happened with your fish ?
I am sorry to hear about your troubles. I am not sure I can help in all questions at all, but I can offer a few thoughts.
As for the paros it sounds encouraging that most of them are eating and looking better. For the one that is not looking well, it is not easy to say what it could be. My experience with licorice gouramies is that they are not so prone to diseases, but odinium is something which can affect them. Of course other conditions as well, or reactions to too much stress and changes in waterconditions.
The clamping of the caudal fin in the chokolates and the one paro too me is probably just a sign of unwell being, – as far as I remember, chokolates really do this when not feeling good (totally folded caudal fin) – but the jerkyness might indicate that there is something really bothering their skin condition as you yourself also think. With the paros I would think that the change in water chemistry is mainly responsible for this, – however I would look carefully after whether they develop odinium. (Which is not uncurable with licorice gouramies if you have the right medication)As far as I know, medication used in low ph water works much stronger, – and normally you should half the dosis. Maybe you did that already ? But I always think that medication in low ph and low conductivity water is unpredictable really, so I almost never use it. Only medication I do use is spirohexol tablets (works extremely well with paros with odinium).
is mopani wood a special kind of wood ?
I havent found any problems with the normal kind of ‘aquarium roots’ that I use.
I think we have become aware that you are quite right, that it had already been published online. But this was very surprising as it was otherwise understood that it was not to be published before on the 19th.
I am sure Peter will write again here soon and we will find out what happened and how to go about it.
Its a big announcement and really exciting news. But of course one is always a bit afraid of those things with authors rights and so, so it was rather confusing this online edition 🙂
We appreciate very much that you wanted to share this exciting information with us, and when its found on the internet and online for public use, then it is of course quite all right.Some females definitely show some reddish or brownish colour in the dorsal fin. Which reminds me, that we should actually probably also be concerned about photoes of females for the different species, – we tend to focus on the males 🙂
I cannot quite remember if nagyi females are specific in this regard, but I would consider it quite normal with your female.
As for the dots, – its too difficult to distinquish something clear. The only thing I could imagine one should always be a little concerned about is odinium, – it does happen at times with the licorice gouramies. I dont say I am seeing that at all here. But I have had a few times, – and I will say here now also, that I have always been able to treat this particular illness effectively with spirohexol http://fish.aquaristic.net/en/JBL-Spirohexol-20-Tab.html, – so I really recommend that you always have this – just in case.It looks good though, I think its a good way to use those a little larger tanks. I hesitate though because I am not sure how to do the separation ‘walls’ 🙂
off topic : Ted, I have send you a private message, but I think you havent noticed it. There should be a little green envelope telling you so when you log in (at the frontpage) .. 🙂 please have a look.
I am sure there are difference in the behaviour of the different species, – I experience that too.
F.ex. my P.nagyi’s seem quite bold and not shy, whereas the harveyis seem to be much more ‘secretive’. A pair of p.harveyi can sometimes be in a small tank and I really dont see them, they keep to the back. But then again, I also must say, that when I put my excess p.harveyi males in a bigger tank with circulation and some small boraras, then they are not as shy. So I think it can also have to do with the way they are kept, or the influence of dither fish.The P.nagyi – my experience with those are that they are not timid, – and the males are very eager and as I described above ‘bold’, – very charming, always on the look out for a female. They remind me – in behaviour – a bit of the P.parvulus males – these I find also very eager and not so shy as I first assumed.
I havent found that there are so many diffencies regarding the preferred place of nest-placing. My paros – whether nagyi or parvulus, or harveyi have sometimes used pre-made caves, at the ground, or at the surface, – to me it seems rather individual where they choose to build the nest.
I have not really found that anything worked satisfactory regarding lowering ph and keeping it low, untill I learned of the product called ‘eichen-extract’. That is really working.
Before that I found that even with reverse osmosis I had to fill in lots and lots of peat or peat granules in order to lower the ph measurable, and it took long time.
I also found that having any kind of gravel is working against low ph, – many things that you have in tanks, such as gravel, will contribute to making the ph rise again. For this reason I dont use that anymore, but rather spagnum / peat, or just lots of leaves, or spagnum granula for bottom. This seems to work well also.I dont actually think its your RO filter operation which isnt working, – it sounds too familiar 🙂
Lowering ph can be really tricky and not that easy untill you find just that thing that works for you, – and if its leaves and peat, – you really need to use quite a lot for it to work.And I guess small things can influence it so that ph slowly rises again, – like the food you put in the tank daily. For this reason I always rinse the artemia, first in normal water, then I use RO water to flush them out of the tiny net and into a small container. Then I use a syringe – but I dont want to everyday put like 5 ml of hard water into the small 12 liter tanks, – that I think would eventually bring ph up again. It takes very very little amounts of hard water to change the water
parameters.And I would say, – that, yes, – maybe paros can live in water of ph 7, but they thrive much better in lower, – for a long time I kept it at 6, couldnt get it lower, – and a few fish did produce fry, – but now, when I am getting used to 4.5 its so obvious that they thrive much better, – a side ‘problem’ is that you do get too many offsprings. 🙂
I think its a bit difficult, and I am not sure what is best. To know about germs etc I have too little knowledge about what is really going on, – but experience of course learns you something.
I do not change as much water as I have done in my early years as an aquarist, and sometimes I do just fill up. But then again, I have very few fish in those tanks where I would do this.
But I quite often ‘tear’ a tank down, – because with the paros I dont ‘clean’ much, – so after some months of no cleaning and plant growing, leaves deteriorating etc. – or if the tank is full of fry, – then I simply take all out and the fishes are placed in a new tank. Most of the times this ‘changing’ set of spawning behaviour, which to me signifies that the fish actually appreciate this total replacement of the water.Another thing I quess is that once you get into the real low ph values there are probably less germs that can live there.
🙂 well, definitely a female .. so thats not the problem.
I am sure what you are seeing is normal behaviour, and possible leading up to mating.It can happen of course that the female is not ready, – in which case it can probably be rather a bit hard for her, – but the best you can do is to provide her with good food and options to hide.
It will be interesting to hear how things develop in your tank ..There could be more than one reason for this that you are experiencing.
Its not unusual to see the male chasing the female, – this I gather is a way for him to inspire her, or test whether she is ready for mating again. And of course sometimes she is not, and sometimes this ‘chasing’ looks rather hard for the female. I have also at times been worried.
But I have never experienced that it had fatal concequenses, – I do however really believe, that – as you say with most labyrints, – you need to provide the female with options that she can withdraw somewhere. It sounds like you have.
When you report that the female is ‘pale’ – well, that could actually be a sign that she is getting ready to spawn, and that the whole thing is just really normal courting behaviour.
Your male also – it sounds like he is just really eager, –
Of course, there are also couples that does not really make good couples, and where you might see the male attempting like this again and again in wain, – but again, – it may look hard, but I have never seen it be fatal.The less good scenario, which could happen is that you actually accidentially had two males, one sub-dominant and not showing colours, – so that you might have thought it to be a female. In that case the male agression can be serious, though I would never compare them to other labyrintfishes, – the agression is more showing off, but you will see that of course.
