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The questions of Hugues are to be taken very serious. I could confirm everything that Martin-EF has replied to him.
1. There have been some crossbreeding-attempts under strict control, but they have not been undertaken systematically (say in the case of a few species only) nor long enough (say comprising several generations). Therefore we do not know anything for sure.
2. It is highly probable (but not definitely confirmed) that some crossbreeding has been undertaken unconsciously by aquarists because of the difficulties of identification of the species and especially the females.
3. One even cannot exclude that there has been “natural” crossbreeding; in fact some species may have been the result of crossbreeding of their ancestor-forms. For the most cases of the present-day distribution however we could exclude that by the fact that a certain home range is in most cases inhabited by one species only. There are only verx few examples of sympatric occurrence of two species (see our species accounts). In each case the two are very different indeed and they inhabit different strata or niches of the same habitat.
4. We must be patient until we get further knowledge on the genetic relations of our fish. Actually the Fish-BOL-group in Canada has finished their investigations (Dr. Dirk Steinke) and will tell uns soon about the findings. Another genetic researcher (Dr. Lukas Rüber) in Bern (Switzerland) will take over and complete that research by further investigations with different methods. Both scientists are members of the Parosphromenus-Project.
5. Until we have better knowledge it is a good maxime to behave very cautiously as a keeper and breeder of that fish. As Martin-EF has pointed out the rather similar species of the harveyi- or bintan-group should never inhabit the same tank, at least not for breeding purposes. It would be quite irresponsible to do that and raise possible offspring and distribute it to other friends. Until we do not have better knowledge this behaviour might lead to mixed forms with a reduced fertility. We only can hope that some experience with licorice that will not readily spawn is not due to such a history of their parents …I forgot to add a critique of the front cover of that AMAZONAS-journal on Parosphromenus. It looks quite nice, but there is a flaw to be recognized: It was designed by a graphic specialist but not assisted by a specialist on Parosphromenus. Although I was asked to organize, select and edit (revise) the articles by the four authors, I was not involved in the selection of the pictures for the front cover nor in it’s design. I would have given the advice if three fish were to be taken it should be three different species.
Which are the three species pictured at the cover?
That one at the bottom is quindecim, clearly to be recognized. That one at the top is to be recognized equally easily by all who really know the species (most don’t), it’s the real deissneri. Everybody who knows our project’s homepage’s starting page will know, too: it’s the same picture as we display there presently. But what is the species in between the two?
Everybody who has knowledge of the latter species will clearly see that it is deissneri, too. The separate markings of the dorsal, the caudal and the anal are unequivocal, even although one does not see the end of the caudal (the filament).
I was impressed by the good graphics, too, and did not recognize that feature at the first glance. Yesterday the author of the photos basic to that graphics, Horst Linke, phoned me and called the fact to my attention. Of course, this displaying three fish of two species is not the optimum solution from a specialist’s point of view; there would have been enough splendid photos of other species to arrange three fish of three different species for such a graphic cover. Admittedly, it’s not a “mistake” or worse, it’s a shortcoming only. I hope what is to be read inside that issue will repair that stupidity. In less than two weeks time it can be judged.Nico, very young fish will sometimes not respond positively to being transferred to another tank. If they are two months old, it’s no problem any longer. Perhaps it would bei a better idea to transfer the old. Very often, they react with immediate new breeding. Or put the young in a two liter round glass using the old water and feed carefully not too much. You can stir around the water once a day, the debris will assemble in the middle of the bottom and coukld be siphoned easily. Then give a small amount of new water. This is a well developed method!
They shortened all articles, but my colleagues were less aroused by that than I was. (In fact: the reader will not realize anything). It’s a good collection, anyway. There will be some nice photos of species and habitats, but this is not the main point.
Our friend David Armitage prepares an English language booklet on Parosphromenus with texts and pictures from this website. Martin Hallmann and I prepare the first book ever exclusively on Parosphromenus (to appear in the “Natur-and-Tier-Verlag, Münster, Germany) later this year (we hope). It will be rather comprehensive.“Finke’s rule”:
Good parameters. Maybe you will find the seventh young.
Do you know “Finke’s rule”?
Some years ago a professorial colleague of mine from the university erected an aquarium when he saw mine. Some weeks later I visited him and we looked into it. It had developed very well and I found one young. Several minutes later he discovered the second and again I found the third a short time later. There my friend said: “I call this Finke’s rule: If you find one young fish, you will find another one too. And if you find two, it’s highly probable that you find the third, too. And so on.” At that occasion we arrived with Finke’s rule until seven or eight.
So, I think it is very likely that you will find the seventh, at least 😉Dear Bernd, the problem is not to produce one sex only but to prevent that. I remember that somebody complained that he had about fifty offspring of nagyi but all females. Unfortunately we are unable to give exact borderlines for temperature, acidity or humine concentration. The Most probable reason is that these factors form a joint system and one cannot view each of these separately. Therefore it is impossible to say e.g. “until 25 degrees Celsius males, above females.” I am sorry but it is a bit more difficult. So it is possible that one breeder with low temperatures and a pH near the neutral point has a majority of males, whereas his colleague with high temperatures and very low pH has the same result, but with other configurations of that values we get a different picture
Dear Nico, welcome “on bord” and give greetings to Herve.
And I am very sure that you will clean your front glass when you will take your camera again 😉
(That has happened to me also, but it happens only once).Thank you very much, dear “Oberhausener”, for correcting my wrong Information. I confirm your correction: the New Edition including the articles on Parosphromenus will appear this month (February) at the 26th already. I got the months wrong, sorry. (You should know that we have prepared the articles last summer already).
In the last days I was in contact with all the authors, yesterday I saw Günter Kopic as the last one in Bamberg (Bavaria). All are quite pleased with the result. Since I have organized that special issue I am a bit disappointed that some of my additional informations on the authors, on the fate of the name “deissneri”, on breeding advice or on our Parosphromenus-Project have been shortened or even omitted by the editors for space’s reasons, but the rest will be quite nice nevertheless. And the information on our Project has been updated in the meantime; I even could include the information on the forthcoming Chinese version …).
So, it’s only a fortnight to wait, and it will have appeared!Patrick, excuse me that I did not reply to your questions.
Yes, you are right, contrary to the sex determination in mammmals or most birds in fish or amphibians this decision is not taken in the moment of the fertilization of the egg but in the days and even weeks to come by the influence of environmental factors. We know of the potentially decisive role of temperature, pH and even the quantity of humine substances. I cannot tell you of an exact duration of the period before the decision is taken, but experiments show that it could be rather a long period of several weeks mostly. Quite often breeders complain of whole clutches developing to males or females, and it is most likely that they have put the foundations for that by themselves by a low or high pH, a low or high degree of humine substances or a low or high temperature.
We know of no differences between the Parosphromenus species but there maybe important differences between fish of very different categories.
You can find many additional information in the internet.Marcin, some remarks:
1. I should never try to breed licorice gouramis in a fully empty tank even without any surface plants. I use at least some javamoss and Ceratopteris at any case and leaves or peat on the bottom, and even some small roots, too. Mostly, that makes things easier.
2. You need not to see “everything”. You need to see everything happening in the cave. Place the cave in such a way that you have a good view in it using a torch.
3. It is very risky indeed to keep several species of Parosphromenus together in a community tank. If you don’t mean males only but females, too, I wonder if you would be able to select the “right” females if you want to breed a species. This keeping-together is possible in quite a small number of species only, but very hard if not impossible with the great majority, especially nearly all species (and other forms!) of the bintan-related forms with a rounded tail. We are not sure whether the males could achieve this at any rate; mind that we have no information on the closeness or distinctness of species (or subspecies?) so far. Such a community tank is only an alternative if you have a very well-chosen selection of forms that allow to recognize the females without doubt (or you have so many fish self-bred that you don’t need them fro breeding again). Otherwise the risk of producing hybrids is high. I hope that your hitherto failures are not due to that factor.
4. The caring males try to remove snails from the inside of their caves. They do not feed on them, but try to bite them away. But they don’t succeed in any case. The only thing one can say is: In breeding tanks there is no room for snails as long as there are eggs and larvae within the cave. At least one should try.
5. The caring male should be left as long as possible. It is possible but very difficult to raise eggs without the help of the male. It is impossible without use of effective chemical means against funghi. The males work very effectively in this respect. They will find and remove any bad single egg.
6. The male should (or could) be removed when the young leave the cave. This is not the same moment for all, it can differ from hours to one day. The young will swirl around within the cave a long time (days) before they leave. The father will put them back to the nest, at least he will try (but rather effectively).
7. The thing becomes difficult if the pair has spawned a second time shortly after the first; that happens. Then you have larvae and fresh eggs mingled together at the ceiling of the cave. Then it is best to leave the male at the place and give shelter to the young by the leaves on the bottom and the swimming plants at the surface. Many males (and females) don’t harm their young, but some do.
8. Extensive breeding is the best way to first successes (= leaving the pair in a highly structured breeding tank and feeding it with fresh small Artemia naupliae that could taken by the young, too). Intensibe breeding (= breeding without the permanent presence of the parents, breeding for quantity) is much more difficult. One should learn it, but later only.We in the middle of Europe most effectively deal with Hydra by using Flubenole. This is a white powder not to be bought in pet shops but in pharmacies or with veterinarians only. It is put on the water surface in very small quantities (“a knife’s pit”), and even if there is no circulation it will definitely destroy Hydra within 36 hours. You can observe them contracting within the first half of this time and they disappear without leaving any of them left within the second. The substance is without any harm to fish, but may affect snails. But snails should not be kept in Parosphromenus breeding tanks.
Licorice gouramis will never eat Hydra. In community tanks one can have a try with Colisa or Trichogaster, but that will work only if the fish are really hungry and have no feeding alternatives. In a planted tank they will never get all Hydra cleaned.
In my view there is no alternative to Flubenole. It’s harmless and very effective indeed.
Dear Marcin, I like your way of telling us your various attempts to get your fish propagated. Everybody who reads it can sympathize with your hopes, and I do hope with you that finally you will be lucky and succeed. I do not think that you did handle anything severely wrong, to the contrary: you did everything very well. But sometimes it nevertheless doesn’t work out as it was to do, because we are dealing with living creatures. So, it could be that your male cannot fertilize the eggs, often later on it will work, but not in the beginning. Our fish, if young, must learn quite a lot of things as all living beings have to. Jörg Vierke once publicized a nice little movie on Parosphromenus paludicola Wakaf Tapei showing that the pair only slowly learned to fix the eggs at the ceiling the cave.
So, let me recall some points in short that I think to be important:
– It’s easier to produce the first young licorice gouramis not in a rather empty tank but in tank with plants (including floatings plants) and a layer of leaves on the bottom, since the youngest fish have much cover there.
– Four or five leaves are not enough; they must form a cover on the ground. At least that enlarges the living-chances of the young fish in a tank with adults.
– It’s much more difficult to raise a clutch of eggs separately without the adult fish because the male’s care must be substituted somehow.
– There is a time of ten or twenty days in which young after having swum out of the cave are very hard to detect. In most cases I have not succeeded, but there were many of them.
– You can offer caves of nearly any kind at nearly any place in the tank. The small black film containers are favourites with the fish because of very good small measures are their darkness inside. The can float on the surface (perhaps at a side glass of the tank) and will readily by taken.
– But small caves from pottery at the ground are equally conveniant. Mostly, the smaller one are preferred to those with a rather big hollow.
– Absolutely essential is the absence of Calcium, at least to 95 or 98%. Otherwise the eggs will not develop. Other minerals are less important, but should be restricted to a very low level.
– The pH is less important, but since the lowest degree of a concentration of germs is to be strived at, the best means to regulate that is an acid pH. It should definitely be below 6.8; about 6.0 is not bad for the beginning. But it could be 4.0 or even lower.
– An important point is the feeding of the adults. But in this respect you do all what can be done. Glassworms are very good for producing females with a good fertility.
– At any rate you should be prepared with live food for the youngest fish: Rotatoriae are best, but Paramecium is possible, too. In an older tank with leaves and plants the young fish will find something for the first days, but then, at the latest when they are to be seen in the open water or at the surface, active feeding must begin.
– Last remark: There are species I would recommend to begin with (filamentosus, paludicola, linkei) and not fish from the bintan-group. But I know that if one has to take the fish from a pet shop, you cannot fulfill those wishes. And eventually, you will have success. I am sure.Patrick, you wrote: “We cannot copy the natural systems”. That’s true and false at the same time, it’s a matter of speaking explicitely or not. We must try to copy the natural systems, but we cannot achieve that for hundred percents but much less. The Parosphromenus aquarium allows us a better relation than the standard tank, because the small fish eat less and produce less waste than the average fish in the standard. The absence of any dried food is a big help. I have 33 12-liter-tanks, each with a pair of licorice, and some with small young. The plants that I use, especially swimming Ceratopteris and javamoss and some others in accordance with few live food allow me to keep the water conditions rather stable without a water change every week. And that without any filter. The tanks develop differently; there are some germ densities extremely low in which I don’t change the water for some monthes, others (with growing young fish) must be cared for more often.
Of course, I cannot care for the needs of many plants that I don’t use in such tanks. Otherwise I would have to add Fe (the two-valued), Mn and tracer elements. In aquaria, despite all nice theories, you have often a conflict between plant’s need and fish’s needs; but it is not great a problem in the standard tanks. Fish and plants there are used to rather big leaps great differences in mineral’s concentration.
But it’s true – and we agree with each other again – that to achieve a Paro-tank without any filter developing rather stable for a time as long as possible you need assorted plants and a very thoughtful and sparse feeding. But maybe we disagree again when it comes to plant fertilization. For me in my very small breeding tanks specialized for the licorice, plant fertilization is out. And for my carefully selected plant species it is unnecessary at all.Patrick, I never said that “fertilizers harm blackwater fish”. I said that one shouldn’t use fertilizers in a blackwater aquarium. Why? What is the difference?
In blackwater tanks you must try to keep a rather delicate stability of milieu conditions as stable as possible. The range of admissable values is much less wide than in a standard tank. Why? Because you must try to keep a water near destilled water as stable as possible. The problem ist the structure of an aquarium tank as opposed to the structure of the natural biotopes. There, you have a constant flow of new waters delivering subsequently water of a conductivity near to nil and a rather stable pH well below 7.0; the very special nutrients for plants (mostly plants of the riparian banks, rarely true underwater plants!) that are stored in the ground don’t disturb that stability because the flow of new water egalizes them again. In an aquarium you have a very small fixed amount of still water, only stired up by a filter pump (sometimes). The filter does not eliminate overdimensioned nutrients. And in most standard tanks they are. You can compare the normal standard aquarium to industrial intensive agriculture. A blackwater aquarium is just the opposite.
In a densely planted tank with mainly underwater plants you need plants fertilizers that constantly renew the level of nutrients. The fish kept there stand that. The success of the aquarium mass hobby wouldn’t have been possible with fish that are not adapted to such changing conditions. The two most important preconditions of the mass hobby – tap water what ever that means and industrial food – include the necessity to have fish at your disposal that can bear that conditions. There are enough blue and red and large and small, as you you know. The licorice don’t belong to that group fitting in the preconditions set by the mass market. Why? Becauses they are adapted to the very special blackwater conditions. Therefore they will never have a future in the aquarium mass trade.
There is another point. Fertilizers are different. For example, some include nitrogens, others don’t. Normally we don’t receive exact informations by the industry what the exact contents are. They talk of “fine plant growth” and that’s it. Such products are risky for aquarists that must try to keep a delicate still water milieu as stable as possible.
And there is a third important point. I always try to convince the friends of licorice gouramis that their first duty is to learn to breed their fish. I think that merely keeping highly endangered fish that have been caught in the wild for beauty’s sake until they die is not the right conduct of a thinking aquarist. There are enough other beautiful fish for them on the market which are produced as mass products. (I don’t like that, but it’s a fact that I cannot change). The first thing one has to learn is to create situations in which those endangered fish not only are ready to breed but in which their eggs and larvae have a real chance of survival and development. And that’s not a tank for which you need “fertilizers”. Nevertheless you can build very nice tanks even full of plant growth. If you look into my small Paro-tanks, each is different. There are plants in all of them. You have the choice of quite some twenty or thirty species. But not of a hundred or more. You must restrict yourself and could nevertheless create highly attractive and different environments. A n d breed the fish. Without using any plant fertilizers (only feeding your fish with that live food and changing waters from time to time).[quote=”humike7″ post=806]Thanks for the response guys[/quote]
Mike: I am a guy, many others too. But Helene, Nathea, Lisbeth and others who write here are not…:)I don’t want to keep fish in a bare tank as this type of fish keeping feels just like keeping chickens in battery cages (…)
I think this is the wrong comparison. Keeping licorice gouramis densely crammed in a tank like neon tetras or barbs would be comparable to a battery cage. Licorice always like to hide. Therefore, the question whether to keep them in a planted tank or not is different. They need structures “to lean against”; they are no fish of the free water. But the decisive question for them is not plants or not plants (that maybe important for us) but structures or no structures (e.g. wood, dead leaves) resp. caves or no caves. In their home territories they live between dead leaves on the groung and stems of emerging grasses in the lower parts of the riparian banks.
The aquarium test is breeding. I prefer using some plants in that situation, too, as you do. But it’s no battery cage situation if you do not, but provide a single pair with what they really need: structures.
As the other points are concerned, I am with you.
