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Obviously, P. ornaticauda has been imported again by Ruinemans/The Netherlands. It is likely to turn up in other countries, too. Friends in Germany, the Chech-Republic, Austria and France should open their eyes. There is a great interest in this species, and we have a small stock only. The breeding of this species is not as easy as with many other Paro-species; even the best experts experience some unsolved puzzles. As our Hamburg meeting is concerned, it could be fine if we had hints where the trade offers it. Chester Zoo, for instance, is looking for some pairs with respect to a planned breeding programme, but it is unclear whether we can geve them enough animals from our Hamburg breeding stock. We should make use of this opportunity to enlarge our stocks.
The conductivity could be lowered to about the half; otherwise: good.
I shall see whether there are photos of young P. sumatranus; I think not. The species is somehow more difficult to be portrayed in sharp pictures of high quality than other Paros.This issue develops to a very interesting end, as it seems.
These fish are no sumatranus, but probably something much more rare und little known: The odd P. spec. Palangan from Kalimantan Tengah.
It was found for the first time by I. Baer, N. Neugebauer and H. Linke in 1990 in the so-called “Planduk” (“deer stream”, famous amond Paro-lovers!) at the end of the village Palangan on the Sungai Kenyala, near to the Sungai Sampit. They lived there in company with Betta foerschi and Betta anabatiodes.
One year later the same species was caught in the area of the village of Pundu in the Sungai Cempaga region. Pundu lies on the road from Palangkaraya through Tangkiling to Kasongan on the Sungai Katinganin. The road runs about further 20 km in westerly direction across the Sungai Cempaga in the Pundu area. The river and the road finally reach Sampit. (Dates thanks to friend Horst Linke). Therefore, this species was for some years known by two names: spec. Palangan and spec. Pundu. But a mistake happened with Pundu: a wrong photo was associated with it showing a fish with a lanceolate tail (spec. Palangan has a rounded caudal fin), and so they were wrongly believed to be separate species.
Even a third name is associated with it: in 2000 our Japanese friends led by Hiroyuki Kishi (“team Borneo”) travelled extensively through Kalimantan in search of new fish, and the found this species in The Parenggean area around 25 km norh of Palangan.So, they called it P. spec. Parenggan.
The fishes live in slowly flowing or even current free blackwater within densely vegetated riparian zones and were extremely difficult to be caught. This explains that it was never vound again up to now. The temperature was 76 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the pH 4.6 to 5.5; measured by our Swiss friends Krumenacher and Waser in 1991.
Last year, Horst Linke travelled extensively through Kalimantan Tengah in search of this odd species. But when he arrived at all the three points where it had been found formerly, he saw them completely destroyed: no blackwater anymore. Therefore he concluded that we would see this fish never again.
And now the unexpected happy end. Our friend from the U.S. David Jones (Ekona) realized that there were some strange looking Paros in the tanks of a commercial fish frader. Looking for P. sumatranus, whish he had never seen before, he bought them and made excellent photographs. These fish are definitely not sumatranus, but it is largely probable that they are P. spec. Palangan! I showed the pictures to Horst and he confirmed my suspicion. So, because of the attentiveness and curiosity of our friend it seems that we may have found this species again, named “deissneri” in that commercial tank (of course …). The future will show if we are right.
High compliments to David. Now, we must try to breed them.
A short note on sumatranus: We have sumatranus; they don’t seem to be more endangered than the other species. There are some stocks in Germany. At our meeting in Hamburg they can be seen and probably in small numbers purchased.
This issue develops to a very interesting end, as it seems.
These fish are no sumatranus, but probably something much more rare und little known: The odd P. spec. Palangan from Kalimantan Tengah.
It was found for the first time in 1990 by BAER, NEUGEBAUER and LINKE in the same area as P. parvulus, un te so-called “deer stream” (“Planduk”) at the exit to the village of Palangan on the Sungai Kenyala, near to the Sungai Sampit in Kalimantan Tengah.
Forget all advertizing as deissneri. Although the photos are not sharp, this fish is something like P. spec. blue line. Very different from deissneri. You see true deissneri for example in our book in brilliant photographs. It’s the typical nonsense of the traders who simply use this oldest name for nearly all species of Parosphromenus. True deissneri has up to the present day been never imported commercially but only by private breeders that visited Bangka. There is no commercial activity on Bangka at all. The male deissneri is strikingly unique by structure and colour. See our species section.
But your fish is nice, strongly coloured and you should try to breed them!
Fine picture, fine animal, but sumatranus? Not likely. The specifically characteristic big round black spot at the end of the dorsal is missing entirely (mentioned as species-characteristic in the original description) and the black stripe at the border between anal and body is missing, diminishing towards the tail. Nevertheless: very interesting fish, close to former spec. Palangan from Kalimantan Tengah (which is thought to be extinct because of complete destruction of the only habitat known. But ….)
Please, send the picture to me personally at my personal address. I shall forward it to other German experts. And we should discuss it in Hamburg.
Your photos are excellent, but your fish are not fully adult and the males (you have two) not fully coloured. The typical marker-combination of adult male P. sumatranus are missing, but somehow faintly indicated; I cannot exclude that they will develop still in the next months.
My suspicion is that it’s not sumatranus but an interesting variant, no doubt. If it is, you are moe lucky than as an owner of sumatranus. That rarely happens today, but it does from time to time. The destruction of the old habitats force the catchers to look for formerly unexploited areas, and some small or difficult to be accessed will have survived.
Things remain open until they display.
Yes, the first picture shows a faint indication of that typical round spot at the end of the dorsal. And there is an indication of a further typical marker of the species: a thin black stripe exactly at the borderline between body and anal fin. Compare it with the good photos of sumatranus. There is a third possible marker, too: a comparatively slim body, compared with typical bintan-forms.
Nevertheless, the last information is given by that strange courtship only. Clearly, the final seller is mostly incapable of telling you exact informations. Often, even the exporters cannot do so, because they are not interested in such questions. And if they are, they do not freely spread them: they fear the revealing of goog catching areas to other companies …
David, your fish are extremely interesting. But I doubt that they are P. sumatranus. At least in the male there is always a dark round spot to be seen (see other photos) which is very characteristic. The coclusive marker would be the position in the courtship: both partners stand upright 90 degrees on their tails, which is quite unusual with all Parosphromenus!
Therefore I do believe that your fish are not P. sumatranus. But which species are they? They look very much lime a species/variant that we only had once many years ago: P. spec. Palangan. As Fried Horst Linke told me some months ago all former habitats are destroyed over there. B ythe way, they were situated in Kalimantan, not on Sumatra. But of course, he could not visit them all. And additionally, in Parosphromenus there is always the possibility of a new form that we never saw before.
In any case, do inform us about further developments. Could you receive further sure informations about the origin of your fish?
Please, do write a personal mail to me.
You should read the background texts (left menue) more carefully or read our articles (e.g. in AMAZONAS or elsewhere or the book on Parosphromenus by Finke and Hallmann).
Everywhere it is clearly said that these fish occur in slowly flowing waters, not in still waters. But I have always said, in the book and in articles, that I never have used any filters and other water current producing equipments in my tanks. You can breed them very successfully pairwise in small tanks without any water current.
Nevertheless, I always recommend a small sponge filter for safety reasons.
If we have really bad photos only, it is not necessary to post them here. The Parosphromenus-project is not intended to sharpen its profile by presenting the most bad photos of the aquarium world.
I cannot explain the disappearance of the male. Sometimes a female-looking fish is a male, but I cannot say this about your two. The male, however, might have been present most of the time in its cave. A male that found a good cave and is ready for courtship and spawning is rarely to be seen outside again. I always recommend to put only one cave in a tank for one pair only, and place this with the open front towards the front glass, in order to be easily inspected by the light of a torch.
The “eggs” are Paro-eggs since there are no other fish present.
We had several observations that females cared for the clutch in the cave after the male disappeared or died. Linke saw this with linkei, I with paludicola.
But always a male was present before.But we have had very few observations, too, that a female produced eggs withou any male present. There may be several different reasons for this. In any case, why are the eggs not in their cave but distributed outside? Either you did it by your search for the male, or (more likely) a female did it by not caring perfectly for the clutch because disturbed by anything, perhaps the other female. A trio is not always the best setup. After forming a pair, the second female should be taken out. In nature everything is different. Nobody cares about a lost clutch.
In this case, we shall see if the eggs develop. If there are snails in the tank, there is no future for them. Sometimes, the female(s) eat them, too. Without parental care there is only little hope for them. If they do not disappear, we shall see if they are fertilized or not. If they are not, they will die by funghi within a few days.
Normally, destruction of eggs by funghi happens rather fastly. If they remain like this for several days, it is very likely that the male disappeared very late indeed. You must observe if they change. The normal development of Paro-eggs leads to a very fast change of their form; they become longish, and a tail is to be seen after four or five days. If they remain as round as they are now for several days, they are not fertilized. Then, the male may have disappeared even earlier.
Rafael, you may find this not very amusing, I understand. But you wrote an interesting chapter of the observations of unusual behaviour. It might be nice if you could reveal the male’s fate. Are you sure that it’s corpse is not to be found behind the tank?
[quote=”SchizotypalVamp” post=4452]Can we substitute Gammarus shrimp(Gammarus sp., prob pulex) for baby brine shrimp as a nutritional staple? I have a colony of brine shrimp, just FYI. I just prefer food bred in freshwater.[/quote]
Artemia (Brine shrimps) are ideal food for young and growing licorice gouramies. Of course, they must be rinsed with fresh water. Your wish to “prefer food bred in freshwater” is an old one; there is no alternative to the easily bred brine shrimps.
But in a certian way there is an alternative: Moina macrocarpa. Breeding Moina is someties very easy and sometimes it does not work at all. At any rate you should try it. The propagation may be very fast, and soon there are all stages of animals between the size of fresh Artemia naupliae and 2 millimeters, like Daphnia. Ideal food for Paros of all ages.
Daphnia are readily taken by most Paros, but they don’t like it very much because of the hardness of their shells. Moina are much softer. They are an ideal food for Paros. Try to get and breed Moina. In a way its easier to breed than Daphniae, but they should be fed their yeast water daily. If you are away from home for three days, they mostly die. That’s the only problem.
Yes, Dorothee is fully right. Trios are nice as choice of partners is concerned, the recommendation by Bernd is justified.
But in respect to the growing-up of the offspring in presence of the old fish it may be not the best choice. It depends: sometimes, especially in bigger tanks with many hining places, they manage to survive, often it’s only a very few.
For this reason we (and Bernd too) do not follow this method at any rate; we take the old fish out if we want to raise young efficiently. It’s always a risk not to do this. But we don’t do that in other cases: I had pairs (not trios) of nagyi or paludicola in a rather plant-crowded small ten liter tank, that produced more than fifty young; I could harvest them some months later. And I had a similar ten liter tank with 2 pairs of freshly cought P. gunawani, that contained some weeks later not 4 but 12 fish.
As I say, it depends on the structure of the tank, but in the first line on the different habits of the old fish. Some leave their offspring unmolested, others not. With a pair of P. sumatranus I watched the female after free-swimming of the young intensively search fo each of them to eat it.
ad 2) C. wendtii does best in better light conditions. Your tank is a compromise.
ad 3) With gardening I mean the idea that a normal aquarium needs many growing plants, a good idea. Nevertheless, you must distinguish between the structure of a natural biotope (with a huge bottom and rather little amounts of flowing waters) and a tank. You cannot copy that by having a bottom layer a bit thicker, an inch or three inches. Your ideas of plants as filters are very good for normal aquaria, but not for specialized blackwater tanks. Of course, you can try intermediate ways, but you will not meet the full requirements, neither of the Paros, nor the plants.
ad 4) good!
ad 6) some do, but others not. In most natural habitats the pH is lower (see literature!). What you intend (and many of us, admittedly) is a compromise. We are caught by the images in our head and the wish to see nice green plants in our tanks that should look nice and cozy. Walstad was a huge progress in America compared to the very unnatural and ugly tank-models that were in usage before. But she offers no recipe for a Paro-tank. The only thing I want to say is: Paros in their home-habitats do not live in underwater gardens. Mostly, there are only grasses growing at the side and hanging partly into the water.
ad 7) I would love this too. But experiments show that nearly all of our traded shrimps don not flourish in nearly destilled water with low pH. A friend of mine had some success with a rarely traded small species, but again at a relatively high pH and a mineral content near the border of Paro-conveniance.I am sorry, but your wishes are those of many aquarists. Nevertheless, the structural differences between nature and the tank are important. We forget this with our usual aquaria, In this case we see them very clearly. Anyway: You can continue to make compromises, of course, I do it in some of may tanks, too. But we should see them as what they are: compromises. If you want to breed your fish as your dominant aim, then you should give them an environment which is as much as possible constructed for their need and not for yours.
