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America has so many people, and so many people who spend money on fish, and who keep reef tanks, discus and other aquariums that need more than minimal attention, I feel like if peat fish were available often enough for long enough, they would then become permanent fixtures. Producing huge amounts of any freshwater fish will be done if it is profitable, and the kinds of people who want these rare fish that require extra care are the kinds of people who will pay more for their hobby. So it should be worth it for people to breed them, people will pay for rare gouramis when they’re available, like I said with betta channoides, and betta macrostoma is actually becoming more available from what I see on aquabid and also offered at same store I mentioned as unsexed juveniles.
I don’t know if this will work out how I think of it, but the fact there is such a huge amount of money and attention that can be directed towards aquariums here, it seems like it might not be impossible to use that to preserve some species. If people care about discus, reef tanks etc. why not peat fish, they have a certain appeal in the fish themselves and the tanks they are kept in. And may even have advantages over other aquarium fish, in a way their natural habitat makes them really appropriate for aquariums, they live in very small shallow bodies of water, unlike some large fish and saltwater fish that seem out of place in captivity. The complete experience and the ecological perspective are there with these freshwater fish.Sounds like they benefit from numbers, and regular maintenance is ok, hopefully I can just make it understandable and predictable, and the amount of work just is what it is if you want to be able to keep the fish properly.
Thanks for the link.In light of the recent “they’re all doomed to extinction” remark I think this was a little optimistic. But it does seem like if they were seen in stores more often, they would become as popular and common as other popular fish that also are demanding for the aquarist. And the fish room setup that they require, this is probably appealing to people, like a greenhouse is, and since people are becoming conscious of being “green” in general, maybe. Looking at things in an ecological way is great when you have ambassadors for it in the form of peat swamp fish that are beautiful and interesting. Planted peat swamp tanks appeal to a certain wavelength of thought.
The detail oriented, perfectionist approach may have limits, but what’s worse is my past approach which has been to think that way but not to really have all the information that is available- and end up with a worst of both worlds aquarium. Treating fish like they’re delicate in a way that makes them become more delicate.
People have tons of success with fish with simple methods, and so being obsessive and detailed about it may seem pointless and mistaken to them, but it’s even worse to be obsessive and detailed and not have all the information that is actually available.
Peat fish are a great place to solve this problem because it seems like there is no chance of success if you don’t REALLY pay attention. I have been a bad aquarist in the past and it’s no fun to take an interest in animals and turn it into killing them!
With the tank as it is, there are about 20-25 gallons of water, and a very large amount of driftwood piled to create hiding places, with water sprite covering the surface and anubias in between the roots. I am going to let the plants grow out and then try and prune or control them, and I wonder if in this tank, the large amount of plants will make the need for water changes small even with a reasonable sized group of chocolate gouramis. Their small need for food, and the plants lack of any other food than fish waste might work together. The tank has snails and tiny worms and small organisms in it, the large amount of them should be helpful too, since the invertebrates don’t make much pollution but probably enhance the plants success. Also I am really hoping these little animals are part of the chocolate gouramis food or at least for their young. Crowding the chocolates seems like a good stragegy because of their aggression, I wonder if 6 is too many or enough. The fish can completely hide if they want, it is a little like the rockwork in an African cichlid tank, piling roots on top of each other so that there are lots of caves and hiding places. There is still open space, between the water sprite which hasn’t yet grown its roots out and since the roots only come up about 3/4 towards the surface. Chocolates seem like attack on sight fish, maybe this setup will give them a chance to have their hierarchy with minimal stress.
The ph tester, that’s one item I can know I have to get, an electric one which is not hard to find. The germ test you linked to, that’s one more thing I know I can get. I think reef keeping people locally will probably be able to help me find some of the testing equipment. So you use demineralizing, something like an r/o filter but more complete? Getting all these high quality tools would be great, once I have them I can take the detail oriented approach the way it is meant to be practiced.More idle thoughts- keeping the aquarium with no water changes, just filtering out waste, if this were possible, wouldn’t there be a build up of humic substances that don’t get filtered out? The conditions in the wild are supposed to be really saturated with humic substances- how do the fish react to different levels of them, how much would it take to hurt them, how much do they have to have present, and how do they physically react to them at all?
I thought maybe with zeolite and uv filtering you could just top off the tank. Water changes are probably the best method that everyone uses though, it seems.
In the wild the changing levels of humic substances are seasonal, I assume. Maybe it is daily rainfall and there are certain kinds of fluctuation that they put up with well.Frozen foods are out of the question? Are they ignored, is that they pollute the water, or are they inadequate nutritionally?
Combining prepared and live foods is not a successful method?
BTW has someone out there made the simplest possible method of hatching baby artemia, I’ve done that a million times but I want the most easy, automated way to do it so that is is almost effortless. Since baby artemia seems like the smartest staple, the eggs are always available and it is really nutritious. It’s not like it’s that hard or time consuming to use an inverted plastic bottle and siphon out the hatched artemia, but why not perfect the laziest way possible to raise them?
Sounds like worms as a second food are a good idea, worms are probably on the easy side of culturing and maintaining a large amount of them at all times. I don’t know that from experience, except blackworms, but the issue of being able to depend on their availability and survival seems to be good and also fish are said to love worms and get huge benefits from eating them.
My tank has little “copepods” swimming in it, I hope the large amount of wood and plant matter will sustain a big population and there will be real benefit from it.I still have some questions and figured I might as well write them here- just questions about water preparation and testing. So ignore this post if you want to read about chocolate gouramis.
Preparing the water is an issue. What ph and hardness lowering products to buy and how much to add to the r/o water is a mystery to me. I got ph lowering powder, but I don’t feel like a very competent amateur chemist.
The tank has a peat filter in it now and test fine, though another issue is that I need to get high end testing equipment. I will not feel like the tank is ready until I have a pH tester, and whatever other hardness and bacteria tests are needed.
And maybe there are low pH range nitrate and other pollutant tests available.
It would be simple to just take peat (of the right quality) and filter the water with that, I have a tank with peat filtered r/o water that test fine as I said, but apparently peat is too unreliable. There are other materials you could use for filtration, and I wonder if that alone is enough to make the water the right value and also clean enough. Oak leaves were mentioned. Maybe the chemical method is best, or maybe there are reliable organic materials that will prepare the water. I can’t feel like the tank will be stable and safe until I’ve established how to prepare the water every time and I actually have the most accurate testers for all the important parameters. And I wonder if zeolite could be used in place of water changes, not to lessen the effort but because that may be less traumatic for the fish than water changes.
Also, I have a plastic plant holder that I’ve attached to the top of the tank so water sprite can live with its leaves in the air and roots in the water, I’m hoping this will be a powerful filter, and the root structures will look beautiful and create grazing areas for the chocolate gouramis. I was also thinking of taking almond leaves, chopping them into fine pieces, and using that as a substrate, even putting in so much that it buries the roots, but the roots are nice looking and it would be a shame to hide them. Maybe a few leaves are all that is needed.
I’m looking forward to hearing about success people have had with chocolates.I will go to seriously fish and I will pay attention to what the person who’s successfully bred selatanensis has done- but this question could relate to any blackwater gourami- does live food that is cultured for blackwater fish need to be raised in blackwater conditions?
I’m trying to understand the sensitivity of blackwater fish- it’s their immune systems that aren’t able to handle bacteria, I think I have that part down. And maybe they don’t tolerate change, the usual description of a fish that is not hardy. And for some reason they are used to humic substances being present and this is an element of their environment they’ve evolved to put up with or need, and is one part of the list of unchangeable environmental demands that need to be respected to keep them alive and breeding.
Where it is in the chain of interaction with the fish and their aquariums that they usually get killed and which part of their physiology is it that dooms them. This is what I am trying to get to the root of. And perhaps they are not so delicate that food from normal water would kill them. Maybe the conditions in their aquarium mean that if something is introduced, even if they eat it or are somehow exposed to it the disease organism will not have a chance to catch on and hurt them. I’m ignorant of biology, I’m not ignorant of the seeming inevitability of failure with chocolate gouramis. And that is the last I’ll say about chocolate gouramis, this isn’t the place for it.Sure, where is the best place to start a chocolate gourami thread? The tank I have right now is probably going to end up with them, it is too big for licorice gouramis.
There is overlap in interest with these two fish but this site is for licorice gouramis, so maybe there is another location that would be good for learning about chocolate gouramis.
I am most interested in selatanensis, and definitely want to know whatever anyone who’s kept them has to say about their experience with them.
I saw a talk about dwarf cichlids where the speaker said the right way to keep them is in very large groups, that this is how they live in the wild. I have a betta book by member RJ Goldstein and I think that’s where I read that albimarginata are mouthbrooders and live in fast flowing water, maybe they’re mouthbrooders because they live in fast water, I don’t know. But they tolerate each other, maybe because they simply have to, why waste energy fighting the current and seraching for mates. Something like that. Or they don’t guard eggs so they’re not as territorial, probably a mix of reasons.
Funny though, I saw albimarginata in a tank and they looked pretty mean, the males were a little torn up and launching really fast attacks on each other.Thanks for the tip, I am a huge fan of chocolate gouramis and there does seem to be some mystery about how they can be kept without killing each other.
It happens again and again with fish it seems, keep them in big enough groups and they are happier. Obviously tons of exceptions, but in fish stores I see big tanks with lots of schooling fish and some ctenopoma acutirostre, and the ctenopoma are active and out in the open. With no other fish around they are aggressive to each other and hide constantly.
And with African cichlids it’s always recommended (or often recommended) to crowd them.
But that’s a little different than keeping a group of one species in the social arrangement they would form naturally in the wild. Then again that probably is the social arrangement African cichlids have in the wild, tons of different species everywhere and lots of commotion.
Introducing the gouramis together all at once, and getting a group that is young might be helpful. Like with piranhas, they will be less likely to kill each other if they have a familiarity that starts at a formative or pliable period of their life. I had a male and female microctenopoma ansorgii in a 5 gallon, the male bullied the female and eventually they bred and after that all the fish tolerated each other, the young were not eaten either.
I wonder if crowding chocolate gouramis helps, in a bigger tank with room to make the school looser, maybe they aren’t forced to tolerate each other and live in a truce. My tank has a root structure, several roots overlapping, and a layer of water sprite, and will have lots of almond leaves, I’m thinking this will give chocolate gouramis hiding places, close proximity to each other, and a safe feeling that will maybe contribute to less aggression. I am going to get information soon from the supplier of these fish to help know what they do that works.I’m near Boston, there are lots of very good fish stores here, it’s a good place to be if you want rare freshwater fish.
Hopefully we will have as much of a community of blackwater fish keepers as Germany does someday.
Maybe reading books like Baensch’s atlas influenced me to prefer rare freshwater fish where most Americans seem to like reef tanks.
Blackwater gouramis are impressive when you see them in well designed aquariums, they might be under the radar because freshwater fish are usually for people who don’t want to put in lots of effort (if they did they’d probably have flashy saltwater tanks.)
The small tanks a licorice gourami need make it a potentially great kind of aquarium for someone who doesn’t want to expend lots of money or effort but wants a rewarding aquarium.
Blackwater tanks with antibacterial substances in them are an appealing philosophy for fishkeeping, make your tank an antiseptically clean place, unlike a live rock kind of philosophy where it’s a lottery of good and bad organisms and a little too close to real nature!Another thing is how much ph lowering additive should I use? I hear that they are really powerful, so I would like to know which brand and product to use and exactly how much per gallon.
Once I know the right amount to add it’s easier than dealing with peat. And adding blackwater extract is a good idea also, just combine the ph lowering chemicals and blackwater extract and that will be fine water?
And I can’t help but wonder about almond leaves and their lifespan, I will use them as the substrate so there will be a pretty large amount of them, should I replace them when they start to look really decomposed or is there a schedule people follow for replacing them that takes into account unobservable losses of their useful properties?
These questions are a little redundant but I know that once I’ve got the formula down it will become automatic.So the tank is peat filtered and tests fine (based on multi puprpose test strips, and except for a little nitrate), but your idea of treating the water with pH lowering chemicals and then adding blackwater extract may be superior to relying on peat, which has to be tested to confirm its properties.
First I wonder what the best test kit is for blackwater, for the pH and hardness. There are low range test kits, I assume those are fine but maybe there are some particular test kits that are the best choice.
Then I would have to change the water until it is replaced with the new ph lowering and blackwater extract treated water.
You said you use a Sera ph lowering product, with that and blackwater extract, would that be good enough of a solution? The Indian Almond leaves I am going to use as substrate, there is no reaosn to add some kind of extract of them to new water as well?
A thick layer of leaves would look nice and probably hold lots of live food, hopefully the antibacterial properties they have would outweigh their ability to accumulate dirt like gravel would. Maybe not that thick a layer, but it is tempting because it would look so natural.Hmm, now I have this over sized tank set up. Maybe a pair or small group of sphaerichthys may be better, if I am cautious with their social behavior. I just was keeping freshwater pipefish, so I have experience with inundating a tank with live food, but it did get tiresome. Then again they probably had drastically bigger appetites than licorice gouramis.
I used a Mardel test strip and all the water values were at the lowest the test strip could register (pH and two kinds of hardness) and there was no nitrite but some nitrate.
I wonder if that is a good sign, that the sponge filter, other organic matter, and water sprite are combining to make this a normally functioning, cycled aquarium.
I have yet to put in the almond leaves as substrate. Products like melafix, would that be a good additive to new water, in addition to peat filtration? And speaking of peat filtration, the Sera product you mentioned that is designed to lower the pH, this is a safe and consistent way to get the proper water values? Couldn’t I combine that product with some blackwater extract for the humic substances? That sounds like a faster and more consistent way to prepare the water.
There is a little too much decaying matter in the tank for me to believe the tank is close enough to blackwater levels of cleanliness, and the nitrate readings are not perfect, so I will have to get it cleaner before I can think about introducing fish. There will have to be a breaking in period, maybe there will be a spike and then things will normalize like most tanks that are new. Thanks for the in depth responses, there are obstacles when you don’t know how to go about things but it’s rewarding once it starts to come togetherforgot this-
5. In a larger tank like I am setting up, would it be good to introduce as many small live organisms that will live among the leaves as possible? There are lots of rotifers or whatever else is available that could be critical for keeping babies alive. Is there a risk of disease from this (the source I would get them from sells them in clean water so I don’t think that would be the problem), and has anyone else had success with this, a larger tank that is seeded with tons of little live organisms to help ease the transition for baby fish? I had baby microctenopoma ansorgi survive in a densely planted tank with no food added, they suddenly swimming around happily with no intervention. So who knows what can magically happen in a planted, organic matter filled tank.
