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Why do you post your conversation in the Universal Forum and not in the European Forum?
My question does not refer to this postings (on public display) only but to many others, too.We have four forums, and we put some thinking effort on the categories that should classify what is relevant for which group of our members: the Asians, the Americans, the Europeans, and all. If these categories are neglected, things are put in disorder and do not help any longer to differentiate the different interests. Until now, our forums have a remarkable stability compared with many others that have started with disorder and enlarged it in the course of time. Surely, many things are relevant for all, but there are other things that clearly belong to one of the regional categories. As yours in this topic.
In general, until now our thinking effort in the beginning has proved useful. But it could be rendered worthless by neglect of some Europeans (or Americans or Asians) who see the world with their spectacles, only. The problems of the Paro-friends in the different continents are common and they are different. So, please think before posting things whether they are of regional interest or of global.
John, here is the website of the Söll-company:
http://www.soelltec.de/21elemente.html
I have no experience with all this and I think it is exaggerated a problem. You probably can use other brands, too. I always used pure water that had runned through my kat-/an-filter and added some cups of tap water. It worked with all species.
Helene has expressed my thoughts too. I am sure that she spoke for everybody who was present. There was a very friendly atmosphere and a common conviction that we are on the right track. We parted very satisfied. And some loaden with many new Paros.
A great help was Bernd Bussler. He had not much benefit himself by the meeting, but his practical help was a great benefit for all of us. Before the meeting began, during the meeting and even after it ended. And he provided many people with species that they never could get hold of in the past years.
We look for further commentaries, on shortcomings too, if necessary. A report will follow, but it needs some time to be prepared.
For me, it was a great experiment: an internet-based network with members in all continents offers a meeting in the physical world, and we decided for Hamburg, Germany. Has this been the beginning of a series of further physical meetings? We left this question open in Hamburg. When this should be the case, it could without doubt happen elsewhere on earth. But surely in two years time at the earliest, I think …
By the way: our membership and all our activity is for free. The Hamburg meeting was for free, too. It’s civic engagement. But we need money for such things, therefore we collected some in the beginning of the Parosphromenus-Project five years ago (for the software- and provider-costs, for instance). Single people and some institutions gave money, and it was enough for all the years. In Hamburg, however, we had to borrow that translation system, for instance (320,– Euros). Now our funds have a tendency to nil. Three people on Hamburg gave spontaneously 220,– Euros. Great, but we shall need more. We shall write a newsletter on that problem in some weeks time. Now it’s time to be happy: It was good.
“I decided to do it that way because it does not make sense to count animals that are either not able to reproduce or not fully grown. I wanted to get a comarable number that has a sort of an impact. Theoretically, with each of these pairs we could set up a tank that should be able to produce offspring. This means that breading pair has the potential to keep its species alife which is not given in single animals or monosex groups.”
Rafael, this is no good a decision. It is very important that even single fish are noted, because these species are rare and heavily endangered . We often had the case that a single male or a single female could help another person who looked for just the partner. In the case of rare fish species we must think in other categories than that we are accustomed to with most barbs or cichlids. A single fish might be of utmost importance and often was!
Your tanks are decorative but not characteristic or specifically designed for the needs Parosphromenus. It’s your needs (or our needs): the wish for an underwater garden.
It’s a compromise between the needs of our fish and our own preferences. In such a tank you can keep Parosphromenus, of course, but you can hardly control the breeding and feed the young fish in their first weeks without overcrowding the water with too much small food. Most of it will decay and worsen the milieu.
And such a tank will function with some hardy Parosphromenus only that will do with a pH not much below 6.0 (that is e.g. linkei, paludicola, quindecim, partly nagyi. Mind that the optimum milieu for all that species is a pH clearly less than that, mostly we found one between 4.0 and 5.0). Most other species will not thrive in it at all and will hardly find their best live coditions, however. They will live for some months but age more rapidly than normal. Most aquarists don’t see that because they are no longer used to keep fish for longer periods. But these fish are endangered; one should decide to keep and breed them under the best conditions their physis is adapted for.
A typical tank for most Parosphromenus species must bear a lowering of the pH towards 5.0 and lower, often even below 4.0, and must contain waters without any calcium. The plants I see growing very well in your tanks will not stand that. Mind, our fish are animals adapted to peat swamps!
I can understand your wish for a decoratively planted tank, it’s a wish of my own too. There are some plants more adapted to that, but I can hardly see them in your tank. So, I suggest to have not only one tank but at least two or three: those in which your fulfill that wish, perhaps with linkei or paludicola, as a compromise, keeping them not in their optimum milieu but in a milieu they can stand for some months, and others for the most Parosphromenus, more adapted to their real needs and natural habitats. And easier and more safely for feeding the young.
You must avoid the vinegar, that’s the problem. The coffee filter is one usual method. Another one that you should try is the following:
– Keep your vinegar eels in bottles with a long thin neck. Keep the vinegar level low so that at the neck’s end there is an air-filled room about at least four or five cm (two inches).
– Take a pad of wotton wool (normal medicinary cotton wool) and fix a thread on it of about ten cm (5 inches long). Failures can depend on false cotton wool or cotton wool pressed too heavily so that the eels can’t work their ways through it.
– Place the pad with help of a stick in that way into the neck of the bottle that it just touches the surface of the vinigar with the eels. Perhaps you must try several times.
– Now you fill cautiously water in the empty neck above the cotton wool. If you do it cautiously, only little mixture with the vinegar will happen.
– Wait for about half an hour. During this time the vinegar eels will work themselves through the cotton wool in the clear water above. You can follow it.
– If you think there are enough eels, you can pull the eel-filled water by drawing at the thread and pour it into a glass. Perhaps you must train this also.
– Then you have rather pure eel-water and you can give it intio your tank by using a pipet or small spoon.This is a good method if trained a bit.
It is fully justified to pay more attention to female colouring. The present state of affairs – that male courtship colouration is the decisive factor for species determination – is too much simplified a rule. Essentially it goes back to the limited experience of taxonomists. It is not wrong, but it does not mean that females show no colours in their fins at all.
For instance P. filamentosus females have rather strong markings they show during the pike of display and egg laying in their unpaired fins. Similarly P. tweediei females could show rather clear reddish-brown markings in that situations. In other species similar colour changes are often not very clear to be seen, but they are to be seen. With some species the changes are even more spectacular, f.i. with P. quindecim oder the two slim species.
It would be a real progress if we could gather good photos of all females of our genus, displaying such markings and changes, that in normal colouration are not or nearly not to be seen.
These fishes are undoubtedly interesting, but it is not possible to determinate them at present. The information of the the trade (“south-east Asia”) is of no use.
Therefore I want to suggest how to get along: In similar cases – import by the trade without reliable informations on locations and no clear identification as a described species – we have named the fish with the trader’s name and the year. For example: We once had a very nice stock that was imported by a German wholesaler named “Mimbon aquaristics”: it appeared in the German trade in 1998. The fish resembled the species that was later named P. alfredi. But at the time of that import this species was not yet scientifically described (that happened in 2005 only). Today, we are pretty sure that spec. Mimbon 98″ was an alfredi-variant; maybe the true and strict P: alfredi. However, since we did never get any exact information on the location where it had been caught wen cannot be more exact.
So, I suggest that this fish should not been provisionally named “spec. rubrimontis/tweedie/opallios” but “spec. name of the trader and 2015”. Additionally, we shall know that this fish resembles to a certain extent tweediei or phoenicurus or even opallios. But there is no name type “aff. tweedei/phoenicurus/opallios”. This is knowledge but not a type of provisional name.
David, since you informed us about this interesting fish and we cannot be sure that it is a hitherto already described species (I do not think that there could be new species from western Malaysia, but possible from vast Kalimantan and Sumatra) you should tell us the provisional name follwing that type of naming: importer/trader and year (I think: 2015).
Then we wait how the young fish develop. They should be kept separately and bred separately. Maybe a new import delivers more information. If not, we must possibly live with that provisional name for a long time, perhaps forever.
The strange young female 1) has an incomplete anal fin; we know of no Parosphromenus with such a fin as normal. This certainly is a congenital defect; 2) the spot on the dorsal is very likely such a defect, too; we do not know this from any other P. pahuensis.
The paleness of the body seems to be a reaction to the courtship behaviour of the male. But it is not yet grown enough to finally decide.
Such congenital defects could be inherited to parts of the offspring, or could be lost in them. Without genetical investigation of the individual this is impossible to decide. Adult pahuensis look very similar in both sexes; the females normally look a little more dull than the males. I had a wildcaught pair from Hiroyuki Kishi that always made it difficult to decide: who is who? I could decide it, but the female showed in principle the same body and fin colouring as the male. And since filaments are missing too, this was really a problem. Therefore: wait and see how the colouring of the fish develops when she becomes bigger.If the fish originates from Bernd’s stock (and there is no reason to mistrust him or suppose that there has been an involuntary interchange; that has never happened to him, he is very sensible in that respect), then we can suppose it’s pahuensis female.
There are two possible ways of dealing with the problem: a) wait and see. However, if the offspring seems to look normal, this is no proof that the genetical defect was restricted to this individual alone. The defect could be recessive and not openly repeated. b) Begin anew with new fish that do not show this defects. This is surely the better solution. However, if you go this path, it would be better to change both partners if the male came from Bernd’s stock too. If not, you should only change the female for one of a different heredity line.
Maybe, this is too strong a position. Then you should go the first path, but be very cautious in dealing with the offspring. In any case, Bernd’s pahuensis stock need to be supervised closely. The most probable explanation is, however, that this are single phenomena occuring in one idividual only. This always can happen. If there are no signs of more defects in other individual of that stock, tehre may be a problem nevertheless. But you could do nothing against it and live with the results. If these defects appear more often in Bernd`s stock, then one should not use it any further for propagation of the species.
It’s interesting that we come across such phenomena rather rarely. P. quindecim, for instance, has been propagated from one original stock only until the present day, and it never showed (openly) congenital defects. But that maybe different with different species and stocks. We do know nothing about the health of the stocks that reach our aquaria. But the longer they have been treated inadequately since being caught out of their natural habitats (and the trade treats such fish badly for weeks and months, in Asia already, in Europe afterwards) the fish may bear the consequences without revealing them in their open appearance.
The first is a naygi Kuantan-type for sure, since the colour of the tail fin band seems to be whitish.
The second are young linkei. Young because the filaments of the fins are hardly developed. “moon spot” is a typical trade name, still better would be “star sky”.
The third is impossible to say. You need 1) good, sharp, detailed photos, 2) photos of males in courtship colouring, and 3) definitely not in frightened-look colouring (as here the last one). It is very unlikely that it is gunawani. P. ginawani was never imported for sure commercially, but privately only. It is known from one location on Sumatra only, and it is heighly unlikely that all fish since sold als “gunawani” could originate from that spot. The trade knows what people are interested in: new species and again new species. Since many Pars are difficult to be determined, the use their chance to sell “new” fish.Mark, as I told you personally already, I just informed Horst Linke about your wishes. One thing is quite clear: There are nearly no good pictures available without costs. There are some offered to us for the sake of the P-P’s use in this website, but not for more. We therefore had to pay much attention to that problem which is huge in the internet. Many people think that all the nice photos of fish are for free. No, the good photographers urged us to take measures to prevent free downloads.
Therefore, I just asked Horst linke who has first class pictures of all species by a personal mail to reply personally to you on the costs. Since your article is to be published in a commercial journal this question must be answered first, sorry. I am no photographer; I have no fish portraits shot myself at all. Many of the fine photos to be seen in the Finke/Hallmann book on Paros are from Hallmann, Kopic and Linke. All are not willing to give their photos for free. And this is right, I think.
I nevertheless hope that we can solve that problem.Every serious Parosphromenus breeder should have four cultures of food:
– Moina
– Grindal
– “Micro” (worms)
– vinegar eels
– and Artemia (naupliae)But: The last three are rather small. They are good for growing small young fish, and they are taken readily by adults, too, but they are a little too small for them as a sufficient base for their diet. (Of course, raising Artemia is possible, and adults love such bigger ones very much because they are similar to those young stadiums of shrimps that they are accustomed to in their home ranges. But it makes things still more inconveniant and troublesome; so only a few people do that).
Vinegar eels have two big advantages to the similar looking micro worms: they stay alive much longer in the fish tank than those. This is a big advantage for all new Paro friends who have not yet learned the art of adapted feeding: feed more often but each time only very small amounts of food because of the water quality. When you have learned that lesson you will love vinegar eels. The second advantage is that they will live for hours and longer in all parts of the aquarium, whereas Micro sinks down to the gravel and gets lost there and decay. (One reason for breeders to omit gravel altogether and to dislike too big tanks for Paros).
Nevertheless, with these cultures you are independent from the seasons, and with Moina and Artemia you will be even successful in getting your females ripe for egg-laying. (You will not be successful in this with the other alone, or, with Dapnia. So you don’t need a culture of Daphnia).
But: In the warmer season you have an easy to harvest source of food which is the best you can offer: mosquito larvae. You can harvest them in big quantities out of small containers with a bit stinky water in the garden, in all sizes, for young and for adult Paros. If you have ever seen an adult Paro chasing for such a larvae you know for all times that Artemia naupliae are are good, but not its favourite prey.
There is no risk to catch dragonfly larvae. They need clear and clean water without smell, quite the contrary to what mosquitos prefer. And they live at the bottom or at plants. If you want to omit the last risk that some could hide in the nettles that Bernd recommended for producing that stinky milieu, take the nettles out when they have done their duties. One can rule out the possibility that afterwards any drangonfly will lay eggs in that container. Their needs are completely different. Nobody should neglect the advantages of mosquito larvae. You get your females ripe within two weeks.
Of course, there are other good food items only to be caught in the open nature: Cyclops for instance, Bernd favourite food, or what we call “glassworms” (factually larvae of non-stinging midges). They are wonderful food but not as easy to be cultured in your garden or on your balcony. You can find them in bigger ponds and small lakes only. And there you must look afterwards; a dragonfly larvae could have been harvested. too. But the risk is low. The bad experiences told her are of quite different source: exotic dragonfly larvae imported be the trade with aquarium plants. You can minimize that risk by nou using imported plants from the trade or using only items that you have scrutinized closely for dragonfly larvae. They are big enough to be found easily.
Paros are, contrary to other labyrinths, no fish with a special relation to the water surface. Therefore wingless fruitflies are no suitable food.
[quote=”Peter Finke” post=4933]A school of the tiny Boraras will enjoy much swimming space; less than 40 or sixty liters should not be considered. This helps with water management which is essential for successful aquaristics. Nevertheless, these fish are used to streaming waters. You must imitate that by a) streaming filtration and b) water changing as often as possible (once a week at least 10 to 20 percent is very advisable).
Now Paros: Even two Paros only, an adult pair, will represent more living mass than 20 or thirty Boraras. And in nature they live in (slowly) streaming waters, too. Nevertheless, their behaviour scheme is entirely different. Even in nature, in a streaming water body of huge space and big quantities, they are completely used to a tiny living space. When the male has found a fitting cave built of a leaf or a piece of old wood, it is happy and leaves this cave only for searching a female or near food or to put a rival to flight. Females are less restricted this way, but nevertheless they search for males with caves, too. And when bpth meet, their life is fully centered around that tiny habitat, their living room. When they spawn, this is entirely restricted to the tiny inner space of the cave; only the male is occasionally looking around for rivals or enimies. After spawning, the female leaves the cave but lingers near to it in order to take the former duties of the male and to defend the cave with male and the clutch and the larvae. When the latter get mobile, they try to leave the cave and the male cannot stop them, although he tries at first. Finally, he surrenders and leaves the cave or – more often- tries to attract another female for the next spawning or – mostly – the same female (if it has not been eaten by an enemy in the meantime).
This means: Paros have very little need of space. The only have need of very clean blackwater with stable values. As aquarium practice proves, they even do not really need the constant weak flow of the water. But they need water of best quality. This must be considered by choosing the size and the technical installation and care of a tank.
A Paro-pair is quite happy with a tiny space around that necessary center, the cave. This was the receipt of Allan Brown, one of the best specialists of these fish, observed in nature and imitated in the breeding tank. He used 5-liter tanks and had the best results for many years. He produced huge amounts of all available species, including the true deissneri or allani or rare variants as spec. Kota Tinggi. I use 10-liter-tanks (factually 12 liters) because this is a standard size for cheap industrially produced tanks; see my often published array of 24 tanks, containing altogether less water than is contained in many single living room aquaria of today. The tanks of Walter Foersch were not much bigger. The tanks of Günter Kopic, German master breeder who bred most species for the first time in the eighties and nineties, contain 40 liters.
When I recommend 20 or 25 liter tanks I recommend them because I know the laziness of humans, me included. If you will have best results and observe what is happening, no tank must be bigger. Bigger tanks are dangerous. You miss many important things, you have difficulties in feeding the tiny young adequately (if you will not overfeed, because of water quality) and you can hardly cope well with difficulties as illness or diseases or noxious developments that you have to correct for saving your valuable fish.
But the really important thing is water quality. To imitate the constant flow of best and clean blackwaters the aquarist has only one choice: that’s water change, frequent water change. You cannot reach this aim by filtration. Water change is essential.
Allan Brown, as his wife Barbare characterized him, was “a water changer”. And every successfull Paro-keeper and breeder must be a water-changer. The biggest problem with a much bigger tank for Paros is not that you miss many of their behaviour but that you deceive yourself by thinking: o, then I don’t need to change the water too often. Bigger tanks induce laziness. And that’s wrong. If you decide for Paros, you better decide for a small tank not more than 25 liters (or fifty at most, but for most intentions this is too big already; and I don’t like those people who want to create a “natural environment” without knowledge what this means for Paros. Paros are endangered species; Simply “keeping” them in a nice aquarium is not adequate for them. Then you can decide for other fish that are not endangered. You should enjoy their full life circle and that icludes breeding and breeding means: preserving, by producing an next generation).
But this means: Water changing and defeating one’s tendency to laziness is the most important thing for successful Paro aquaristics. Mind: Very small tanks could be decorated very differently and attractively, and they are much easier to handle as bigger ones. And you must handle them often if you have decided for these fish.[/quote]
