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! MY FIRST NAGYI-FRY !
Last Saturday, I was fastening the film canisters (that used to float around) to the walls of my Paro and Betta tanks.
Coming to the tank with my dominant P. nagyi couple, where I hadn’t seen the male for quite some time, I checked the two canisters with the entrance in the direction of the front pane – and found them empty. But there’s a third canister floating directly against the front pane and not showing his entrance. So I carefully moved this canister away from the pane and slowly turned to have a look inside. And what shall I say: There’s the long time not seen male guarding some 15 to 20 already hatched fry not even leaving it’s cave due to this disturbancess… – Slowly, I moved the canister back into it’s old position and left the tank alone until yesterday evening.UPDATE February 28
Four days after finding the hatched fry, I thought about re-checking the canister. So I again slowly turned it by 180 degree – and found the male still in the cave. This time I could only observe about five larvae – but the nest was much larger than before!
[i]Do Paro males still rebuild and strengthen a nest after the fry has hatched?
Or do Paros couple in such short intervals that fresh eggs are placed in a cave where still some larvae are in?[/i]However, this time (after I accidentaly had destroyed their first cluth some weks ago) the fry has hatched – and is about to leave the cave. – Now I wonder, whether I should remove first the female and – after it left the canister – the male, too, in order to give both a rest and to make sure that they don’t go for their fry.
On the other hand, I would like to give it a try and to bring up the fry without removing the adults. For my B. tussyae this approach works rather excellent with the adults not a bit interested in their free-swimming offspring. But what about Paros? Should better I eliminate the risk? What do you out there think and what’s your advice here?Thank your for your replies and the pictures!
I already found some photos of fish with Oodinium, too – and I am quite sure that my fish do nhot have Oodinium but, as Peter assumed, some heavy funghi infestation!: No white spots but the mentioned white, fur-like cover that absolutely looks like funghi to me.
So on the one hand, I’m relieved now to not have Oodinium in my tank. On the other hand, I still have this very acute funghi problem – and I am really afraid of the sight that is awaiting me at home.
With kind regards and fingers crossed,
MichaelYes, it might be the ominous Oodinium desease. (‘Ominous’ to me because I read a lot of this desease especially with anabantoids, but never really witnessed it with my fish. – But as I said: Wild-caughts are rather new to me.) But if it is Oodiunium, it’s a rather acute outbreak with not only some spots in he fins etc. but the whole fish covered in white ‘fur’. And all this within a few hours.
This morning, again I found at least two fish with visible infection, but these were fit enough to flee right away.
Waiting for some more advice, I will try to get me the JBL Spirohexol you mentioned. So thank you for this suggestion (would have consulted Peter’s and Martin’s book, too. But, unfortunately, I lent it to a friend some days ago.)
No good news from my side:
Within less than 20 hours, about half the fish got visibly sick!
What looks like a heavy fungus infestation all over the fish’s bodies appeared rather quick: After not seeing any sik fish yesterday evening, when I came home today, I found two fish dead and five very close to death. All this seven fish looked like wearing a white fur coat.Now, after ‘catching’ the nearly-deads (which I killed in cooking water), only few fish are still visible – one of them also showing a fungi area. I tried to catch this one, too, but couldn’t. And I think, it’s not necessary anyway because all fish will be infected already and the ones showing no sickness now, hopefully will stay fine…
What I don’t understand is, why the sickness breaks out so late. I meen: No losses in my retailers tanks and no losses in my tank during the first days after arrival.
Unfortunately, I haven’t put the fish into a quarantine tank when I got them. Now, in a fully planted tank together with young Sph. osphromenoides, I’m not quite sure how to treat them.
I’m not very used to wild-caught fish and I’m absolutely not used to fish sicknesses. So I’m rather shocked now, having lost so many valuable fish.
Tommorow, I will try to take a picture of the remaining sick fish. (Unfortunately, I haven’t thought of taking pictures when I catched the half-deads…). But I guess someone here will be able to tell me what sickness that is and what I shall do. As far as I know, salt (NaCl) could work here? But how much? I’ve read of about 5g per litre? And where shall I apply the salt? In the regular tank? Or shall I transfer all (visibly sick) fish to a treatment tank?
Any helpful advice is welcome!
Michael
A little update – but still no pictures:
As I brought the 18 fish to my fully-planted 60litres tank (together with six half-grown Sph. osphromenoides only), I can’t see more than six to eight fish at a time. And, despite of one or two rather dominant males, they still don’t show very much color.
But as far as I can say, it seem to be
- (a) 90%+ males 🙁
- (b) more than one species (until now, only one male (not the dominant) shows a sumatranus-spot in the dorsal
and
But as the fish are still rather small (around 2cm) it might take some time to verify this.
To be continued….
Michael
Actually, I took all 18 in order to have more time to observe them and to decide which to keep.
My dealer is very easy going here: He will take any fish back that I cannot forward to you or keep myself.
So there’s no risk.Now I want to give them some rest from travelling and crowded shop-tanks.
Then it might be easier to tell, what species it is (or are?) and how many males there are.No pictures yet!
Michael
No photos from my side for now. But I have 18 (!) unspecified Paros here now. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell from catching them, the by far bigger part seem to be males.
If nothing unforeseeable crosses my plans, I will go and get the ‘gunawani’ that found their way to my favorite shop today.
Maybe I can add some pictures then, too.@ Peter: What do think of Helene’s new fish? Do they look like gunawani to you?
Leaving for the shop in some minutes:
MichaelMy local retailer informed me, that the fish (unfortunately, I don’t know yet how many exactly) arrived this afternoon. As I will not be able to visit the shop before Friday – or maybe even not before Saturday – he will keep them for me as long as necessary.
On Saturday, I asked my local retailer whether he orders at Ruinemans at all. He confirmed that he does – and replied that he would try tio get some of the ominous Paros (I guess it will be eight to ten).
As soon as they have arrived in his tanks, I will try to go there and take some pictures.
Given my tank situation, I will not be able to permanently accomodate more than six – or maybe only four fish (if I can distinguish males from females).What do you think? Should I buy all fish ordered straightaway? Then I might have to distribute some of them to another Paro keeper.
Michael
Just got some info from Ruinemans (see iscreenshot below): They are quite sure to have about 100 pcs. of P. gunawani.
Addition: Mr. de Goey from Ruinemans just stated that the fish came from Sumatra. Unfortunately, he did not confirm Jambi county…
Sounds interesting – and maybe worth a try.
But: How can one order fish from Ruinemans withiout being a commercial retailer?
Do I have to ask my local dealer to order for me?Hi Helene.
I understand your doubts – and I share(d) them, too! Therefore, the decision to have 10L tanks (instead of say 25L) was not very easy to me. But as I wanted at least three small tanks in a cupboard-like housing, 75L+ of water seemed too heavy and voluminous.
And up to now, due to very regular water changes and conservative feeding, the 10L setup workx rather perfect even for the bigger Bettas!
The 13+ young B. tussyae are close to 1cm now, so the adults will have to move to my bigger living room tank for a rest soon enough. The 2.2 B. hendra already moved their – and the 3.3 P. nagyi were devided (1.1 and 2.2) onto two 10L tanks after a first couple showed up. And… But no! You will have to read my P. nagyi diary to find out more. 🙂
Michael
FEEDING…
After only a few days, I was sure that at six P. nagyi were less challenging than expected at least regarding feeding (and that my water conditions seem to fit).
In my opinion, the right food is one of the main issues to keep our fish healthy over a long time and hopefully make them spawn. So where other fish do not necessarily need it, for my Bettas and Paros I entirely rely on living food.
Having a garden, a balcony, and a cellar and with some fishless ponds nearby, this doesn’t mean a real effort. It’s more like doing a small harvest every now and then. 🙂
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At the moment I maintaine cultures of
- Enchytraeus
- Panagrellus
- springtails
- Asellus aquaticus
- larvae of day flies
- white mosquito larvae
- black mosquito larvae
- Cyclops
- small Daphnia
– which are great as a ‘power-food’ during winter times and before spawning; In my cultures, this species often goes alogn with what I think is
– or micro-worms: some sort of ‘spaghetti’ for fish babies, and
– which my Betta like to pick from the water surface.
In ponds in our local botanical garden I discoverd rich ‘hunting grounds’ of the following ‘specialties’, that are able endure in coldest water or even under an ice layer:
– with a size between 3 and 10mm you have to sort out a little bit. But they wont hunt after fry anyway, feeding from decaying foliage etc.
– no idea which species, but a rather small one
In addition, in the summertime, my son and I make it an adventure to go through the rain barrells of our garden colony to catch
and collecting their raft-like clutches, which then release smallest (2mm long?) larvae to my tanks, plus some
and
// to be continued! //
