Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Go on posting, many will read with interest.
With my sp. Ampah, the pelvic fins have filaments of different length. But there are two individuals (males) with very long filaments, too. The longest I have ever seen in licorice gouramis. The females’ are much shorter.Ted, the new form is probably not a hybrid. We shall see soon; the first larvae swim in Germany. It maybe a subspecies of filamentosus, but even then it must ke kept apart!
But I share your fears. So, we should not name it cf. filamentosus but spec. Ampah. Sure, they must be kept apart!! And you are right: it is rather difficult with females. The dealers may not keep them together with filamentosus!Dear Bartian, I apologize for using some harsh wording. The confusion that has arisen is not caused by your action but by the publishers of that journal. They originally published December 19th as release date for that issue of “Vertebrate Zoology”, and when Horst Linke sent me the article (December 9th) this was the date to be respected. It was to be read on the first page of that article on top right. It was clear to me that we have to wait until that time before we inform all friends via our Homepage.
On December 11th I saw Martin Fischer at Würzburg, a very sucsessful breeder of “Langgam”, and I told him that I had a surprise for him; “Langgam” is history, now it’s P. phoenicurus (= the European Redstart, a very good name, I think). Of course he was rather surprised too, and we both thought that we must wait unti the 19th to publish this.
But then the publisher decided to go online before printing the paper issue, namely at December 10th, and you found it very quickly. Since I had a pdf given by Horst I did not look again. Then I saw your note and was puzzled. I thought it was your “quickness” that was a bit too quick, but you were not. You saw it in the internet and posted the link. And there was the new date: December 10th. So, you are fully all right. Please excuse my harsh words.
In the meantime I phoned with Horst Linke and received a mail by Ingo Schindler: There is no problem either. They were surprised by that earlier release of the online edition, too.
You have deleted that link. This is no longer necessary. Please restore it that others may see that new first description of two very beautiful licorice gouramis.
PeterYes, your fish could be that new form, spec. Ampah. But it’s too early to call the sp. Ampah a new species. Horst is always ready to say that very fastly. It maybe, however. I differs from normal filamentosus considerably. There is nearly no filament. And the colouring is at a whole rather reduced. Only the edges of the male’s dorsal and anal fins are clearly black. Some tinge of brown is developing near the lower side of the body.
Yes, taken the minor quality of those pictures for granted they seem to be identical with the new form at first called sp. cf. filamentosus, now officially according to the place where it was found P. sp. Ampah. This is a place noth of Banjamarsin and south of Murateweh. We are still unsure whether it is a subspecies of filamentosus (that borders the region in the south) or a new proper species.
The males have a tail pattern somewhat similar to filamentosus but there are (nearly) no filaments; the females have a rounded caudal. The whole colouring has with the exception of the clear black of the fin’s edges a reduced tendency to “black and white”; some brown colours are developing in some animals.
The first spawnings have been observed by H. Linke and M. Hallmann.BARTIAN, I HAVE KNOWN OF THIS ALREADY SOME TIME BEFORE BY PERSONAL NOTES OF THE AUTHORS. IT IS NOT PERMITTED TO IGNORE THE OFFICIAL DATES CLEARLY PRINTED IN THIS ARTICLE. THE OFFICIAL RELEASING DATE OF THIS ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL IS DECEMBER 19th 2012 (see first page of the article, at the top right). IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO POST THIS LINK PUBLICLY A WEEK BEFORE EVEN IF THE ONLINE PUBLISHING DATE IS THE 10th! PRESENTLY I DO NOT KNOW HOW THIS EARLIER ONLINE PUBLISHING DATE COULD HAVE HAPPENEND; I WAS TOLD BY THE AUTHORS TO OBEY THE RELEASING DATE DECEMBER 19th.
NOW I MUST EXPLAIN TO THE AUTHORS THAT IT WAS NOT ME WHO PUBLISHED THIS BEFORE THAT OFFICIAL DATE.
WE SHALL INFORM ON THIS WEBSITE IN DUE TIME.
Peter FinkeBartan is completely right. It’s a very bad thing to establish a community tank for Paros. At least one shoukld select conveniant companios (as Boraras spec. for instance, but not Tanichthys, Catfish or even “Neons”. It’s of no use to do this “for the beginning” only. This is just the standard thinking for the standard type of aquarium with a thick layer of stony gravels in order to plant the usual plants. They will change the water values completely; you cannot estanblish a backwater aquarium for long with such a gravel and plants like Echinodorus spec. and Hygrophila difformis.
The second bad thing is to mix different species of Paros, because the females are very similar. In some cases you will be unable to keep them apart, and the males will possibly or probably also. Of course this is done by the normal petshops already. But the first mistakes happen there. We have several cases where they sold the wrong females, and now the aquarists complain about seeing no spawning or – worse – do see spawning but there are weak larvae developing from the eggs doomed to death.
It is wrong to think Paros to be very delicate and difficult. If given the right water with 10 to 60 Microsiemens/cm (I doubt that your RO-water is beyond 100, at least for long) and the fish are healthy you can establish a small tank with peat and beech leaves on the ground, wood from fresh peat-cuttings, a big Catappa-leaf at the back side, a little quantity of Javamoss, Ceratopteris at the water surface and – most important – one or two small caves with horizontal roof, and give the fish immediately in it. Normally I practise it like this and there are no losses. In cases I doubt it because of the condition of the fish I wait for three or four days using that fine Easy Life-milk from Zeolith first. That is undoubtedly a helpful invention but it’s the only thing that I still buy at the Zoo-shops.
The whole aquarium literature and trade is completely fixed on the normally structured medium big or big tank with all the things the industry want to sell in the meantime. There is nearly no explanation of the different type that a blackwater tank must be. Besides, the water must not be dark or “black”. It must contain humic substances but mostly it can well be clear, perhaps a little yellowish or slightly tea-coloured.We just received from P. Yap the suggestion that the new Paro should be called P. spec. Ampah. This is very good since we usually name new forms by the location, often (as in this case) the nearest town.
We are not quite sure whether it is a variant of filamentosus (I think so, but there are other opinions).
At any rate, there is no reason to be disappointed that it was not deissneri. The fish is new and this means it is still more interesting than deissneri.
We have a first photo and I hope to be able to show it here soon.
Here it is:I wrote that posting since filamentosus is a much wanted species but presently a bit difficult to get hold of, especially outside of the middle of Europe. We have breeders in the project who could offer it (ask our distribution service; see button “distribution”) but not being shipped in winter time mostly. This is different with Tropicwater. Besides, the fish that had been taken to be deissneri erroneously is rather a rare and interesting variant. The disappointment of some people because of this error is understandable but one should see that the true identity of this fish is highly attractive nevertheless. And I know that many people try to buy a single pair; in this case too. With mail orders this is neither intelligent nor possible but it led to a lot of superfluous mailings. I did not write it in order to persuade single persons to buy more fish than their capacity allows. It’s helpful that you supplied that limit, of course.
[quote=”tedsomd” post=1361]We can only hope that the real deissneri is yet to return to the rescue mission we are on.
I have the time but of course not the money or would go to Bangka and find them!! what a dream.[/quote]Two German friends have decided to go to Bangka next year and pursue that only aim to bring the true deissneri back to us. During the last week they thought it might be unnecssary now, but things have changed: it will be necessary again. And promising and adventurous. As you said. Since not many people from Europe go there. And no catchers of the East-Asian fish-trade, obviously. Until now …
Patrick, I know Krause well, his books and him personally since the seventies. His views are somewhat personal; I followed some hot discissions he had with Kaspar Horst. Krauses views are fully attached to the problems of the normal planted aquarium with average water. Blackwater or peat water aquaria are to be taken quite differently. What in the normal tank is a “Kunstfehler”, could be quite right in the aquarium with fish which need low pH. (By the way: Parosphromenus don’t “need” low pH, but there is hardly another means of keeping germ growth beyound a tolerable limit, in nature as well. The licorice have adapted to those conditions). You could breed P. ornaticauda for instance (which is a more sophisticated species) with pH 3.0, but with pH 6.3 as well, the latter only if you succeed to keep the germs at a very low level (which is difficult with a pH like this!).
Surely, there are different qualities of “Eichenextrakt”, too, as there are different qualities of traded peat. I admit that. Indeed there are some which let the conductivity rise, you are right. But mostly there are no problems like this. I use that brand which is called “following the receipt of Hans Stein”. And you could use pure phosphoric acid. But once more: In a planted aquarium with many active plants things are to be seen quite differently. I should never work with acids there.
I don’t know whether fish “help” to lower the pH, and I have no experience with HCl.Correction: I have to report a major error. What I wrote in italics in the previous posting was wrong. Sad to say, but expert Martin Hallmann made a mistake in identifying those fish as being the true deissneri “with 99 % certainty or something still more rare”. But what should be more rare than deissneri?
In fact, they are a variant of filamentosus, we call them cf. filamentosus. They look like that old photo of Karen Koomans on our species page; that mal with the blue dorsal.
How could that happen? Well, the animals showed nearly not colours at all. They were in poor health by the stress they had to overcome and therefore neraly only structural markers could be taken into account: rather long dorsals and anals, a slim long body and – above all – a rhombic formed tail with a black filament. I do not kwnow why filamentosus have not been taken in consideration; they have a structure near to that of the true deissneri; only colouring is completely different, But that was missing.
Fastly a German seller (Tropicwater, Mainhausen, D) had bought the whole bunch and offered it as being deissneri. In the meantime that is altered in the right denomination cf. filamentosus. They are very interesting, rare animals, and we suggest all who are interested to buy some of these rare variant. One could do so by writing a mail to info@tropicwater.eu They deliver to foreign countries, too.
We have to say sorry for that wrong information and try to learn from it. In any case it were good intentions that all people involved pursued. Even a very good expert can be mistaken in a borderline case. So, we still have to wait for that moment when the true deissneri will appear in the trade first, at least in Europe. I doubt very much that the so-called deissneri that are named in lists for the U-S., for example, are really referring to that species which is endemic on Bangka island. So far as we know nobody from the fish trade is catching there commercially. And the destruction of the habitats is going on as it is elsewhere.
We always come across the borders of the structure of an aquarium. It’s completely different than the natural biotopes we try to rebuild in part. Helene makes a good suggestion: Eichen-Extrakt. This is a name (oak-extract) of several German products of different unclear composition (?) which I use sucessfully since years. The main ingredient is phosphoric acid maybe together with humic substances, additionally. While plant-aquarists mock about it (I could understand them) it’s quite a different thing with fish-aquarists. If your aim is to lower pH for longer periods with little expense, it’s a very good method. But beware, some drops only suffice. You must control the pH very closely.
Rising pH can be caused by several causes. The main cause in a normal planted aquarium is the activity of plants which is hard to control. In a blackwater aquarium they must play a minimum role. Therefore floating Ceratopteris is of major value with leaves mostly on the water surface and nevertheless very active roots for taking the excess nitrogen ou of the water. Another cause is gravel or wood. It can hardly be normed. The best is fresh wood from peat regions that has never dried out. Gravel should be used in minimum heights only (in my tanks a few millimeters as a settlement base for nitrification bacteria), for normal planting is out in a blackwater tank.
So, my advice is to take phosphoric acid or a brand of “Eichen-Extrakt” in very small doses. Peat is difficult. The reason is nature on the one hand and the trade on the other. Peat regions are all different. And the trade is not transparent; what sort of peat they use and what they are mixing it with is entirely unclear. Therefore there is very good peat and very bad. Even some natural peat contains substances that lead to pH-rise, although it seems to be ridiculous. You must test the peat beforehand if it is conveniant or not. Take the acid und you are on the right side.To the most experienced breeders of Parosphromenus things are quite clear: Water change as often as possible and as much as possible. These fish live in streaming or flowing waters. Nearly never (with a few exceptions only, that could be explained easily by a change in the landscape) they are to be found in still waters.
That means – and I agree with this by considering my own mentality – that doing seldom a water change is only a matter of laziness. I have 33 small 10-liter-tanks without any technique besides light. I am able to breed all species there and I do very little water change. I mainly use Ceratopteris as a plant of a certain hygienic value (the other plants, Java moss, other moss species, Java fern, rarely a crypt) could be forgot in that respect; they are merely decorative. (But even a filter would not alter the situation completely). Good, strong licorice gouramis are doing well in this situation but they don’t breed constantly. They breed – if well fed – immediately after a big change: of water or of the whole tank. But since I do not want them to breed constantly I am satisfied. There are friends trying to do much more water change than I am able to to, say every week a third or up to a half. They sometimes have a problem with this: the fish breed nearly constantly. Therefore they don’t admit freely but it’s true nevertheless: they become lazy, too.
My laziness is helpful, partly. It prevents me from having too much fry. Since my fish stand it for long times (weeks, even months in tanks with a pair only, some young and good growing Ceratopteris, everything is fine, or seems to be fine. Several times I had about fifty or sixty young filamentosus or linkei or spec. Danau Rasau growing up for a few months in that crowded environment of ten liters! Then the possibility or probability of outbursts of infections is very high, mostly Oodinium: small at first, not to be seen at all at the fish’s body, but if you don’t change water even in this situation it will grow rapidly. In bad cases I have lost the fish. So I feel guilty: it was my mistake.
I think we should admit that changing no waters or doing that in some weeks or even months time is biologically wrong even in a 50-liter-tank with one pair only and only due to our laziness. Even tanks with moving water or with filter streaming are a compromise if you want to keep organisms from flowing waters. Perhaps, merely keeping fish will not detect this, but breeding will. Breeding is the true measure of the fish’s well-being. And with the licorice gouramis we have to decide: the more often you are doing the changes and the more water you change the more young you will have. And our adult fish are rather hardy normally. They stand long periods of deteriorating environmental conditions, but then they don’t breed.
Of course doing frequent water change (as my friends and master breeders Allan Brown, Martin Hallmann, Günter Kopic, Horst Linke or Bernd Bussler (most of them dispose of plants altogether, that is to be added; not Horst who does it the same way than I do) t r y to do: weekly up to the half) presupposes technical means for this if you have 20 or more of small tanks of 5 to 100 liters. Above all you have to prepare the water in big enough quantities with the right pH between 3.5 and 6.0 and the right Microsiemens between 10 and 80. That all is difficult. I manage to a certain extent. But keeping my 33 small tanks in exact the way I consider the best I am totally unable. So I like my fish bearing my laziness for long times.
I always hope that they stand it without much damage. And often they do: Yesterday I moved my P. parvulus, not the easiest species, after about half a year in a tank well filled with growing Ceratopteris into a newly set-up tank with 80% of fresh water, and immediately thy began displaying and show signs of breeding behaviour.
There is a clear biological explanation of this: In nature our fish are not only inhabitants of flowing waters but there are clear spawing periods, too. They are dependent from big events, mainly heavy tropical rainfall. Then, the microfauna explodes and the young have enough to feed on. You can follow the same scheme in the aquariums: The big change induces the breeding behaviour. If you get healthy, adult fish anew, they try to breed in the next days. If you put your fish in a new tank with new water: they begin with breeding preparations. And if you change a big quantity of water: the same. And if you don’t they stand it. They normally don’t die. But they become lazy themselves. As I am.
So that’s my conclusion: The licorice gouramis are quite good for lazy people. They stand a lot of our laziness. Although there are borders. If you have one or two small tanks only, it’s no problem. The even a lazy person could change water rather often. Do! Your fish will reward this by spawning. And if you don’t? It will be no big problem if your tank is filled by growing plants, but the fish will not or seldom spawn. Sometimes at the beginng, nearly never later on. Until you overcome your laziness and change a big amount of water or even fill the whole tank anew or transfer the fish to a new tank at all.
So, decide if you want to speak about an ideal or about reality, about the ideal Paro-aquarist or about your real practice. It’s important to know both: You must know the ideal in order to know what to do if you can, and you must know the reality in order to know what the fish can stand.This is a striking case, a nagyi-male without any colours in the caudal. I have not heared or seen anything similar before. I shall ask some of our specialists of this species whether this has been observed before. Normally the colouration of the caudal in the males of the known varieties of nagyi (Kuantan, Cherating, Pekan Nenasi and even the somewhat strange fish from Kota Tinggi) are clear and obvious.
Stefanie: Did you observe this with relatives of that individual, too? Or is it a singular phenomenon?
