Thanks for your advice Peter, very much appreciated.
I did pay a visit to my local LFS earlier on today. They did mention where the fish were imported from, and that the species he had in stock were indeed deissneri. I have very limited experience with paros in general, as this is my first attempt at husbandry. However looking at pictures of this species i would hazard a guess that the species he had in stock were deissneri, i could be very wrong though.
The fish did however look healthy, with open fins, and were kept in a small backwater type tank with lots of leaf litter. However the water would have still be from the local tap supply, which as a stated is fairly hard.
As you have stated above i think the best way to move forward is to take your advice, and buy the fish form my LFS and acclimatise them appropriately.
Again Peter, thank you very much for the advice.