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I am constantly waiting for the fish to show – but, as I said – it is very secretive.
Here are two more pictures taken on the same day as the one above:
What irritates me is that you can always see the 4 little white spots in the tail fin, even if the colours seem different depending on the way the light falls on the fish.
I will post new photos as soon as I succeed in making them ….
As I have already reported in my nagyi-thread there is one single offspring which first I believed to be a young of my nagyi-pair.
But looking at the recent photos of this young – which I took to better be able to sex the fish – great doubts arose.
Being unusually colourful from the beginning the fish now reveals it’s gender clearly – but also I now mean to see a quindecim pattern in the tail fin. Something that also seemed quite unusual for nagyi to me from the beginning is the jagged seam of the dorsal and the anal fins which is deeply white. Looking at the photos of the development of my nagyi pair I found that in nagyi the teeth of the dorsal fin rays never show this deep clear white with no iridescent shimmer.
As I observed in nagyi the shimmering bands in dorsal and anal fin develop almost simultaneously. This young male in question shows a developing iridescent band in the anal fin – but not in the dorsal, which in my opinion is much too red for a nagyi.
One other feature seems to develop: at the base of dorsal and anal fin where they emerge from the body a light seam begins to show – as in quindecim. Nagyi do not show this.
And last, but not least – I mean to see a quindecim “flower-like” pattern in the tail fin …………Some photos to compare:
Still young qunidecim male:
My nagyi-male when it was still young:
And now the young male in question to be a hybrid:
A cutout of the tail fin:
And for comparison a cutout of the nagyi male tail fin:
[quote=”bartian” post=3006]Do you mean to say it’s a hybrid with one of your unknown ones?
[/quote]Yes, Bartian, that’s what I suspect. I am not quite sure – that’s why I need your opinions.
[quote=”helene”]:) I see a Nagyi male … [/quote]
Helene, it’s definitely a male with a nagyi parent ………….. but to me the other parent must be quindecim. Look at the pattern in the caudal ……………… look at the much too red dorsal fin with no shimmering band ………………… I was quite sure to have one single offspring of my nagyi pair which managed to escape from being eaten ……….. but as I studied the photos I recognized this very un-nagyi pattern in the tail fin ……….. and a big suspicion arose ….
I still don’t see the fish very often, he is shy and always hiding somewhere. But I am waiting to see his colouration develop and to take more photos ……….
I will continue this topic in the “Unintended hybrids“-thread.
[quote=”bartian” post=3007]Ruinemans’ nagyi generally is nagyi, [/quote].
But did you look at the picture which is connected to his nagyi-offer? To me it’s something rubrimontis-like ………
Hey – that’s really no bad suspicion …………. but it’s not anjunganensis – I do not have that species (although I would be glad if I did!)
Those who have read all my “silly questions” here in the forum and my reports about accidents in the past might suspect what I suspect ………………. Let’s wait for some more answers to come ….
So – now here’s another picture of my young fish. Look at it closely and tell me bluntly what you think:
I think I was right – it’s a male:
I was quite convinced it’s a male – so it’s no big surprise to me.
But …………. there’s another surprise to come …. wait and see ………… I am anticipating your opinions ….Today it showed again, here’s a better picture:
The fish ist still small, about to reach 2 cm length, with still no strong colouration in the fins. But I think it’s a male, because of the really prominent white seam of anal and dorsal fin. The dorsal fin already shows a strong chestnut tinge and a whiff of a dark spot. For me a much too strong colouration for a very young female.
What do you think?Thank you, Peter, for this detailed answer.
In my case, I have decided to leave everything as it is. It would be relatively easy to take the female out – if she were the “sinner”. It is impossible to take the male out when he guards a clutch – and it would bear all the risks you listed. So I have to resign myself to having a pair which will not produce any offspring.
I now have this single young. Once I have identified it’s sex I can try to find a partner and see if this leads to fry of nagyi in my tanks at least.
Yes, that’s what I thought, Helene. But I think it’s him who eats the eggs. Remember my posts concerning the first clutch of this pair which suddenly vanished.
The tanks are very densely grown, I always care for a patch of java moss or Lomariopsis covering the cave so that very young fry can immediately hide when they leave the cave. I don’t think that even the hungriest female would be able to catch absolutely all of their fry. She would have to hang around the entrance of the cave to get them all – and she is not allowed to do this, the male won’t let her stay near the cave. Remember my thread about my quindecim female eating her fry ………. their tank is bigger with more open space – and not even then she is able to get all young fish, there are still enough of them growing to adults.
I suppose that the nagyi male eats the eggs (or the freshly hatched young still hanging in the cave) and now and then misses one egg or larva. That was the Yeti’s chance………… 😉I have shown many pictures of the displaying male/courtship behaviour in the past ……….. but none of some fry. That’s due to the lamentable fact that there have never been any young from this pair of P. nagyi. They are the first paros I’ve got, they mate constantly and have clutches – but no fry at all. I changed tanks, changed water parameters – with no visible effect.
Now I would like to tell you a funny story: By the end of last year I kept them in a 25 liter-tank which I provisionally divided in two parts by sliding in a vertical glass pane. The two parts of the tank had different sizes – one about one third of the tank, the other two thirds, consequently. The partition was not completey close, there were small gaps of a few milimeters – which was intended! In the smaller part I put some freshwater shrimps (Caridina simonii), in the bigger part my pair of P. nagyi. I wanted to provide the adult shrimps with shelter from the paros to enable a good reproduction – and hoped that the very young shrimp offspring would pass through the very small gaps into the paro part of the tank to provide the paros with a shrimp meal now and then. That’s to outline my intentions.
I can not say if it worked properly or not – the shrimp lived happily in their part of the tank, the paros bred and bred …. and no young.
One day I watched the shrimp side of the tank – and saw this:I saw this young fish once, had just enough time to take some photos – and never saw it again. It can only be an offspring of my nagyi pair – they were the only paros which lived in this tank, and I generally do not move water plants or so from one tank with young to another – to avoid “importing” fry of a different species.
After a while the paro part of the tank became “dirty” (the shrimp side in contrast as clean as can be!!). I put the paro pair in a fresh tank and removed the dividing pane in the old tank to give the shrimp more space and enable them to clean the whole tank. And I put in 4 Boraras urophthalmoides which were left from a bigger swarm.
From time to time I thought what might have happened to the young fish I had seen once and never again. I believed it to be dead because I would have expected it to show without fear with the Boraras swimming around, if it was still alive.
Last week I watched the shrimps and Boraras and suddenly found myself eye to eye with a well grown young paro. Again – just enough time to take a (bad) picture – and he was gone. I felt like the persons who claimed to have seen the Yeti or Bigfoot – they say they saw it clear and sharp but only once for so short a time that no one believes them.So – here’s the one and only picture of the one and only Yeti offspring of my P. nagyi:
I just posted something in Michael Kotzulla’s “P. nagyi”-thread which thematically also belongs here. So I repeat the corresponding part of my answer here in this topic:
I decided to leave the parents with their fry even if a part of the offspring do not survive. Be it as assumed – then the surviving fry are the most viable. There is another assumed advantage: Fry which grow up with their parents might learn certain things which they don’t when separated early. And for the numbers of fry ………… yes, we should attempt to breed the paros to distribute them to other paro friends ………. but let’s be honest: you always have too many offspring which do not find a new home – and then you get a problem with available space. So for me the advantage lies in only few but well grown young fish, raised in a situation as natural as possible. To prevent being eaten is one of the first things a young fish has to learn in captivity as well as in the wild – if not by the own parents, then by other fish in the environment. To artificially raise all fry – even the weakest ones – by preventing them from all possible dangers to me is not the way to obtain a healthy population, even in captivity.
Hello, Michael,
the issue “Do paros eat their fry” is something which interests me, too. I started a thread on this topic a few weeks ago.
I would not agree in general with Peter’s advice to observe each pair and then know which pair does and which pair doesn’t eat their fry – because some suddenly do it even if they haven’t done it before.
My quindecim left their fry of their first clutches totally undisturbed – and then – without any obvious reason – the female (not the male!) began to hunt and eat her own fry. In the thread mentioned above we suspected this behaviour to support the survival of the fittest (in this case the quickest and most watchful of fry) while the silly ones which moved absolutely carelessly in front of their mother’s mouth were eaten.I decided to leave the parents with their fry even if a part of the offspring do not survive. Be it as assumed – then the surviving fry are the most viable. There is another assumed advantage: Fry which grow up with their parents might learn certain things which they don’t when separated early. And for the numbers of fry ………… yes, we should attempt to breed the paros to distribute them to other paro friends ………. but let’s be honest: you always have too many offspring which do not find a new home – and then you get a problem with available space. So for me the advantage lies in only few but well grown young fish, raised in a situation as natural as possible. To prevent being eaten is one of the first things a young fish has to learn in captivity as well as in the wild – if not by the own parents, then by other fish in the environment. To artificially raise all fry – even the weakest ones – by preventing them from all possible dangers to me is not the way to obtain a healthy population, even in captivity.
