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Hi Dorothee, hi all.
I also found that artemia are too small as a very first diet. But at least my P. nagyi get along very well with Micro worms. (With a length of 1.5-to 2 mm and a very, very low diametre, I use to call them my “spaghetti per larva”.)Although I agree with Bernd as far as natural substances should be preferred: I, for my part, tend to reduce my pH by using an acid as well. But istead of an organic acid I chose 98 per cent phosphoric acid which I got from a local pharmacy (I was rather surprised that one can by such stuff so easily. And I was even more surprised when the pharmacist sold me 1 litre (!) of it as no smaller packages were available.)
Up to now I mix one pipette drop to five litres of R/O water, reducing the pH from ~6.2 to ~5.4 but with now significant effect on EC (R/O: 30µS, R/O + acid: 30-40µS).Finally, after some long two weeks of waiting for my local dealer to order, my six (?) fish arrived with me last Friday.
“six (?)” because I missed to them a) before I put some leaves into the transport bag to provide some hiding places and b) when I set them free into the tank, where I counted six animals so far.And no further clarity regarding the gender distribution. I hope, Aquarium Dietzenbach did a good job and sent 3.3. But as the fish are still rather small and not yet in mood to show too much color, I cannot varify yet.
I’m planning to provide not my paros but my Betta edithae with such “summer-resort”, too.
So up to now I placed a 250-litres tank in a half-shadowy place in our garden (not on teh ground but on a shelf) and started to fill it with fresh and used r/o-water (as I do not trust the rainwater I get from our roofs). As I have no car, this goes rather slowly.
Once there are about 15 to 20cm of water in the tank (= 75-100 litres), I’m going to add local marsh and water plants – and finally the fish. (In first place, I planned to do this with some Elassoma, but they are much to expensive for such a test and to small to observe them in such tank anyway. So now that I have the pretty strong Betta edithae swimming, this will be my “guniea pig”)
My concernes so far:
overheating during day + undercooling over night
– Solution so far: semi-shadowy place; tank covered; plenty of plants providing additional shadow
extreme evaporation without proper refill (in time of longer absence, i.e. vacation)
– Solution so far: tank covered with the standard cover, but leaving a vent for air circulation and for food to get in
leck of food (?) (in time of longer absence, i.e. vacation)
– no solution so far: As I don’t want to keep the tank uncovered, there might be too few insects finding the inlet. But actually, healthy adult fish should be able to easily live with such diet.Now I would like to measure the maximum (and minimum) temperature during a 24-hour cycle. As there are cheap thermometers available that save the maximum level reached, this would be a good indication, whether or not additional shadow is needed.
Regarding the minimum teperature, I’m not as concerned: As it should not drop lower than 10 or 15°C (at least not for a longer period), this should be okay at least for my fish.I guess, a good way to prevent at least overheating is to keep fish in half-buried barrels or basins with plenty of water lillies etc. covering the water surface. This seems to work pretty well with larger labyrinth fish such as Macropodus, Trichgaster or Trichpodis sepcies.
Anyway: I’m pretty interested in any field report, too! 🙂
Regarding mosquito larvae:
I assume that you get the black ones from rain drums? So as gnats have no problems with contaminated water, you might bring a lot of microorganisms or even poisonous material in your tank with the larvae (i.e. in its stomachs).
And regarding glass worms: I just recently heard from ‘paro-colleague’ that after many of his fish died right after feeding glassworms, he did a test: he kept the larvae in his fridge for quite some time – but they didn’t hatch or even pupate at all. (From what I can see, wild-caught black and white larvae do this even in the fridge.). So he now assumes that to keep the packed glass worms alive and prevent pupation, some chemical might be added that could be toxic to our fish. (As I said: This is not my experience so far: I feed bought glass worms rather seldomly and only in small amounts and never realised any reaction with my fish. But maybe I just didn’t make the connection to this when a fish died some days after. Who knows?)
Great idea, Bernd.
I would be interested to get some from you then, too.Michael
PS: The 2.2 P. filamentosus I got from Stephan do really fine. Thanks to the black mosquite larvae available from my garden, I’m confident to have some offspring soon.
Hi Dorothee.
When I prepared my first three tanks for Betta and (later) Paros (only 10 litres each due to lack of space in our flat) some months ago, I had to make the following decision: noisy + energy consuming air filter/internal filter – or no filtration at all.
I decided to try the latter way and after about six months now with successfully breeding B. tussyae and P. nagyi I can say that operating even smallest tanks without filtration can work really fine – as long as you
- do very regular water changes
- keep the number of (adult) fish per tank very low
- try to feed living food only, as this wont decay straight away
– In the very beginning I changed about 10 per cent in each of the three small tanks per day. But as soon as the Betta built there first bubble nests I reduced this to 25-30 per cent once or twice a week. And before a longer time of absence I replace 50-75 per cent with fresh r/o water.
– For me, 1.1 adults plus small offspring seems okay.
– I guess, I feed close to 95 per cent living food – plus frozen rotatoria and black mosquito larvae when necessary.
I don’t know whether this could be an approach for you, too. But with a 54 litre tank at hand you could give it a try. 🙂
Kind regards,
MichaelNews from my local dealer: P. gunawani, nagyi, and (of course) deissneri at Ruinemans…
Here the links to Ruineman’s
The images there seem to be of no real help. But I’m not a specialist in the identification of Paro species anyway.
After our latest experience with P. gunawani from Ruinemans I guess this is some other species again?!?
Not to mention the “deissneri”, I think the only belivable labelling shoulg be P. nagyi.Kind regards,
MichaelBasically, I’m with you and Stefanie, too. I only decided to do so because it is my first fry.
So as far as my adults don’t turn out to be “nutritively interested” in their offspring, I will not interfere anymore.March 4th
I couldn’t resist!: As it is my first fry, I decided to avoid the risk of the adults eating their own offspring.
So today I controlled the film canister again to see how far the fry would be: Several pigmented larvae “jumping” around on the canister’s bottom forming the back wall of the cave in the light of my headlamp.So I put a small (about 250 ml) plastic container into the tank – and very slowly emptied the cave with both male and larvae into the container. Luckily, the male was to upset to go after it’s fry so I could catch him out without additional urgency.
A first look into the container showed about 20 larvae searching for a place to hide – which I no added in form of some beech leaves, two elder cones and a halved film canister.
As the larvae already swam freely, I also gave some micro worms and a very small pinch of Sera micron into the container that now floated in the parent’s tank.
Since then, I twice a day change about 50% of the water by skimming it out of the canister with a small can and refilling it with water from the parent’s tank. Here, sometimes some larvae get sucked into the can, too, so that I have to empty the can into the canister again: The whole procedure needs some patience. – In addition, after each water change I again stir small amounts of micro worms and Sera micron into the water.
UPDATE March 13th
As far as I can see during the water changes (in the mornig and in the evening), no losses yet. So I guess the larvae find something to feed – although I haven’t observed hunting or eating so far. – Also, the small fish start to really swim around instead of “jumping” from wall to wall – making the water change even more a puzzle…
Hi Peter,
hi all.Of course I stay – with both Paros and the Paro Project!
I still have 3.3 P. nagyi swimming – and they do really fine.So the gunawani-experience was not a nice one. But this would never be a reason to me to abandon this great small fish.
Still part of the P-P:
MichaelWhat can I say? As far as I can tell by looking into my tank, all but one (!) of the 18 imported Paros seem to have died. (I’m sure for eight fish, the rest just disappeared.) An three of the six young Sph. osphromenoides inhabiting the same tank died as well.
Surprizingly, the remaining one male Paro spec. and three Sph. osphromenoides show not the slightest funghi infestation.
So for me, the issue of P. gunawani (or sumatranus, or both, or etc.) at Ruinemans ended with a total fiasco.
Hopefully, Helene has more luck with whatever fish she got there! Maybe she has more than one species, too, and maybe one turns out to be P. gunawani!?Hi Robert.
After I wasn’t satisfied with visual tests, and after Peter suggested Hanna, I got me this device: HI 9811-5.
As Peter wrote: Of course you have to calibrate, keep the measuring electrode wet etc. But I really like the feasibility to measure pH and TDS [mg/l] / conductivity [µS] with one device – and with a very high level of accuracy.
Regarding my HI 9811-5: I got it at a very fair rate at an German online store whose name I can’t remember now… But I will look it up at home and let you know.
Kind regards,
Michael
