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The most valuable result of filtration is the water movement. Parosphromenus don’t live in stagnant but in slowly running waters. I always recommend a small bubble air driven filter because of that and as an additional security measure for small tanks; my Paro-tanks are 10 liters each. In any case, you must learn very careful feeding to run these tanks without any filtration. But it is possible. I have no filter at all in these tanks since decades. The purifying effect of filtration is much overestimated in the aquarium hobby; it’s a big business in the first rate. The only thing which deserves more importance is the movement of the water. But the fish can be kept and bred in tanks with non-moving waters and they develop normally and healthy.
Nevertheless: I always recommend to beginners to use a small bubble filter. It’s additional safety, although it’s not necessary. If Ceratopteris, Riccia, Vesicularia and some other plants grow in that soft, acid water, a pair of Paros and their small offspring don’t need filtration and water movement. Nevertheless: use it, if possible, but don’t overestimate it.
The chronological order of colour development in the fins that Stefanie speaks about is the normal succession, indeed. With many nagyi-offspring, I have never seen a different order.
This individual is without doubt a special one; the reddish colour of the whole body is unusual, too. It will probably for ever remain impossible to decide whether it is an aberration of an individual offspring of both normal nagyi-parents, or a product of a hybridization. Has anybody asked the breeders (Thorsten and Anne) already?
Walnut leaves emit Juglon which is a very efficient stuff impeding other plants to grow below these trees. I once experimented with these leaves in the Paro-aquarium but stopped it because the effect of Juglon on the milieu is not well investigated and may be dangerous.
Catappa leaves do not occur in Paro-biotopes, but they have a mild bacteriocide effect if used in a dried form in the aquarium. Many breeders have a good experience using them. But fresh only; when under water they become older than six or eight weeks they change to a danger with opposite effect. The best thing is to replace them before by a new one.
Not the tail only, the other fins are not typical nagyi too.
And the photo of the “nagyi”-male when it was young is strange, too. I would not recognize it as nagyi.
Never seen something like this.
Why do you think it to be a nagyi?
Have there ever been adult nagyi and quindecim swimming in the same tank?The experince of Stefanie’s is very interesting since it refers to a new to me shrimp-species which is obviously able to tolerate the low pH and mineral content of Paro-waters.
Hitherto, we only know (by experience of Benjamin Wilden, Germany) that Caridinia parvidentata (which is rather small and without striking colours) is able to cope with that conditions. I can assert this; the propagation and breeding went very well.
With all the other shrimps sold in the aquarium trade (including the wild cherry) it was impossible to breed them successfully in the extreme Paro-waters. There are however shrimps occuring in high numbers in those waters. Obviously the trade was unable to import these species until now because they are not suited to the ordinary aquarium.
The friends who visit the Paro-habitats next should at any rate bring some of those shrimps home together with the fish they catch.
Bill, it has been done but with little success. The person who has the utmost experience with his is Günter Kopic (who has written an article in the AMAZONA-issue on Parosphromenus, too).
The problem is the care of the eggs. If the male is missing you have to do measures to replace him. Simply leaving the eggs as they are results in nearly any case with a complete loss. There is an extreme danger of funghi. If one egg is infected,it is only hours that the next and the whole clutch is. Therefore, the most important thing is to view the clutch closely several times a day and pick out any egg which seems to show any signs of infestation as early as possible. You need good light for this, but the Paro-eggs don’t like that at all. It enforces the risk of being struck by funghi.
Second, since that is normally done in small vessels with a small amount of water only, the necessity of frequent water change is urgent. The new water should have the exact consistency as the old; Paro-eggs don’t like to experience even slight changes change of pH or minerals. Adult fish are much less sensitive, but the egg-stadium is the most sensitive part of a Paro-life. Nearly all our measures we take in Paro-tanks are taken because we want to see the fish spawning and caring successfuly for the eggs and have a milieu safe to the very young larvae.
Third, you cannot achieve the result of developing eggs without using a substance against funghi. Kopic used Acriflaviniumchlorid = Trypaflavin, sold in that times as “Cilex”-tablets (in Germany). Today, there are other substances, too. But the dose is the problem; you do not want to set new risks to the eggs, but you do. Kopic had his remarkable pioneer results in Paro-breeding by utmost care, only. And it included many losses nevertheless.
To sum it up: Let the male adult Paro care for his eggs is by far the safest and easiest method. I he doesn’t do this carefully you have to try it yourself, but then this will be a laborious and nevertheless risky undertaking. When the larvae are free-swimming in the cave you can remove them or the male and things become easier. But in the egg-stadium it is extremely risky and time-consuming to replace the father-fish. His permanent inspections of his clutch are very effective indeed. His eyes are adapted to tiniest things disturbing the life of his offspring. He sees any early signs of infestations and he efficiently picks out the individual egg that is affected. Mostly there are some in their early days. It’s quite normal; nature has found methods to cope with this.
By the way: All this is much more easy with Danio- or Apistogramma- or most Characid-eggs. It is the special adaption to the blackwater milieu that make things difficult. The adult fish endure many smaller mistakes, but the eggs do not. That’s the problem.
Dear Michael, thank you for openly speaking of your bad experiences. Most people like to speak about positive issues only, the disappointments are treated with silence. But for all other people it is very useful if one is bold enough to speak about those, too. Therefore congratulations to your openness.
I have only one wish: that you stay to your love of these small brilliant fish. It is easy to abandon a special interest after having made such a bad experience, but I want to encourage you not to do so and stay.
One could learn from it that all wild caught fish could be ill but one is simply unable to see it from the beginning. It might have been the same to me. Therefore, to take precautions is very unseful: generally put a small amount of 2-amino-5-nitrothiazol in a tank with newly adopted fish. Often, in the very beginning, it can stop the development of several diseases. The more early it is used, the more effective it can be.
Stay! Peter
Unfortunately, the cheaper instruments are mostly of no real use. The Hanna-instruments are good, but you must observe the storage (wet!) and the calibration. Otherwise you achieve wrong results. There are several good Hanna-pH-meters. One is a siple stick, another is a measuring unit which you put in the water connected by an electric cable to the indicating unit that tells you the result.
Look in our Finke-Hallmann-book, and you will see that is a quite normal behaviour that males guarding a nest or larvae spawn again whilst the older larvae are still in the nest.
You can try to leave the old fish. We have often seen young develop in the same tank as the old are living in; I has cases where I caught about fifte or sixty young out of a ten liter tank some months later, and the parents have neever been removed. It’s clear that the following generations had no chance, but not since the parents ate them, but there older brothers and sisters.
But there is no guarantee for this. There are pairs or single males or females which eat their young. One never knows. But if you have many leaves on the ground, javamoss, other structures and a good layer of swimming plants, there is a great chance for at least some young to survive.
You must test it out with any new pair. If it happens to tolerate their young, it’s the easiest way of producing offspring.
Big Tom, very good! This is exactly the substance which is very helpful with Oodinium and – as far as we know – without any noxious effects, even if taken in the the double amount. And Aldrich is exactly the company which we got the substance from in Germany too. You only have to mind three things:
[i]1. You need very small amounts. Take the smallest bottle they offer.
2. You must store it in the refrigerator. In normal room atmosphere you can throw it away after three months.
3. The fresh substance is a light yellow powder. In the aging process, it becomes a dark yellow and at last brown and dark brown. When it has a brownish tinge, you can forget it. It will no longer be useful. So keep it fresh by storing it cold.
[/i]
Your information is very helpful for all people, especially in the U.S., wo formerly asked for “Hexa-Ex” or “Spirohexol”. As I told in that other posting before, one can forget the new liquid forms sold bearing those names. The best is to use that powder, dissolve a knife’s tip in water and give it in the aquarium. We never experienced any harm.But do that early enough. Prevention with new fish is good. In later stages of Oodinium even that forveful substance will not ne able to help sufficiently.
Oodinium is the most perilous fish disease with Parosphromenus. The problem is that the spots are very small, much smaller than Ichthyophtirius. Therefore, it is mostly detected too late for being treated properly. In fact, many wild caught fish are infected by the stress of being transferred from one container to the other without being fed properly for weeks. But in the first weeks the infection is very difficult to be seen at all. It needs best lighting to observe the fine powder-like appearance of a stricken individual. Mostly people react too late when the disease has become obvious. Therefore, we had a practice that was used by most ambitious breeders for years: to treat new fish in advance with 2-amino-5-nitrithiazol; but this will not longer work if you are unable to get hold of the fresh (!) substance itself(see below).
In Michael’s description it is not clear to me whether it is a very late and heavy infection with Oodinium or something else; it sounds rather like funghi, but it could nevertheless be heavy and lately observed Oodinium.
In that state it is nearly hopeless to get the fish healed again. The medicines normally sold for combatting Oodinium are mostly effective in very early stages only; they are of no help in intermediate or even late stages. The only efficient medicine we know of is 2-amino-5-nitrothiazol, a yellow power, which was sold as “Hexa-Ex” (by Tetra) or Spirohexol (by JBL) in a pressed solid form. It it becomes brown (after a few months, if not stocked properly in a refrigirator), you can throw it away; it has become ineffective. Since one or two years however they sell it in liquid form which is better to apply, but it is inefficient against Oodinium. So, at present we have no efficient medicine against Oodinium. The only thing we could try is to recognize the disease as early as possible and use salt and higher temperature at once for two weeks.
I am afraid, that this is no cosolation for Michael. I don’t see how his heavily infected fish could be helped for sure. Of course, you should try with salt and higher temperature rather than the usually sold medicines, but the outcome is open, I’m afraid.
That is strange indeed. P. filamentosus is not a Sumatranian form but one from Kalimantan. This should be a mistake of the importer, not the exporter.
Yes, it is possible to differentiate the females of gunawani and filamentosus but for certain in courtship behaviour only. If not in courtship, it is the distinctly stouter body structure only that indicates gunawani. In courtship, the female filamentosus assume prominent colours in the unpaired dorsal and anal, namely rather broad brown bands that are very distinctive.
But I think this will not help you very much in the normal everyday appearance. There, these bands are not to be seen at all. In this case its the stout body form of gunawani only that would separate both.
That’s interesting, Bartian: three species, obviously all of them originating from Sumatra (indicated by the sumatranus, which are rarely exported). This may be a hint that the locations of the catches are not those of the usual “blue line” and spec. Sentang, and this could strengthen the hypothesis that gunawani is/was one of the three.
Surely, sumatranus are very interesting themselves, since the species is unique in its courtship behaviour with vertical postures in both (!) sexes, far more extreme than that of the both species ornaticauda and parvulus. As we wrote in the Hallmann/Finke book, I think this is an extremely interesting species from the phylogenetic point of view, and from that of evolutionary relationships to the other Paros, too. In any case, we should try to build a bigger stock again in our project! Those of us who can get hold of one or two pairs should breed them at any rate.
But your description of the third form is the most interesting of all: “stout body, shorter fins and somewhat different colouration”. This seems to indicate gunawani, indeed. Therefore, we should try to get hold of all individuals. There should be both males and females, however, differentiated in the usual way by the more pointed dorsal of the males and the colourless fins of the females.
It is to be assumed that the mix has been performed in Sumatra already by the catchers who caught fish in different habitats und threw them together into one batch in order to enlarge the numbers and without realizing that it were different species. They often do so, but it is rarely this clear that different species are involved.
It is further to be assumed that this mixture will appear more or less everywhere in Europe where fish of this import are sold in pet shops. For instance, the fish that Michael Kotzulla bought in Germany are probably belonging to different species, too. I should not exclude the same for the fish of Helene and others.
So, your description seems to indicate that there have been real gunawani in this import. It’s a pity that this has not been detected by Ruinemans (and possible other resellers) in order to separate them and maximize the individuals of each species. So, the result is probably a mixture everywhere and the possibility of getting pure gunawani and pure sumatranus was minimized.
Dear Michael Kotzulla, don’t buy all before we know whether it’s really gunawani (or something else very interesting. It it still possible that the fish are some of the regularly imported bintan-variants. But to buy a few males and females would surely be a good idea.
Perhaps your dealer could acquire some more information oabout the fish’s origin (although this is difficult: the “last” origin” is not the real or first origin; but it is a hint that might be of some informative value.
