Stock­list of an Ore­gon dealer

Robert Gold­stein just mailed me this stock­list of an Ore­gon dealer:

“These just appeared on the web site at Port­land:

1. Licorice Gourami, Parosphrone­mus deiss­neri, 1″, $5.00, 6 for $24.00
2. Melak Licorice Gourami, Parosphromenus pahuen­sis NEW RARE, 1″+, $8.00,
3. Fil­a­ment Licorice Gourami, Parosphrone­mus fil­a­men­tosa, 1.25″, $7.00, 6 For $36.00
4. Ornate Licorice Gourami, Parosphrone­mus ornat­i­cauda, .75″, $8.00, 6 for $40.00″

It should be ques­tion­able whether (1.) is really deiss­neri

Robert Gold­stein mailed me a new stock­list com­mented by the Sales Man­ager of “The Wet Spot Trop­i­cal Fish” in Port­land, and I think that should put here in extracts:

”(…) Lately I have had sev­eral peo­ple ask about Licorice Gourami types. I’ve been asked not only about their avail­abil­ity, but also their pop­u­lar­ity here in the U.S. Many of you have tried to research the few species we are offer­ing and didn’t have much luck find­ing any infor­ma­tion about them. That is because even though they have been avail­able for years and they are unusual fish, there is no real demand for them among hob­by­ists. Because of this, I thought it was time to talk about these truly beau­ti­ful and under­rated species.

All Licorice Gouramis should be kept in a dimly lit tank with plenty of hid­ing places and min­i­mal water flow. They pre­fer acidic water (5.5−7 pH) that is kept in cooler tem­per­a­ture ranges (71−78 degrees). In my expe­ri­ence these fish will only accept live foods, and there­fore are not the best for newer hob­by­ists. These fish are extremely peace­ful among other fish and I would highly rec­om­mend a group of the beau­ti­ful Sun­dadanio axel­rodi “Neon Ras­b­ora Blue Form” to go with them. Care is the same for all species of Licorice Gourami.

Right now we have three types of Licorice Gouramis avail­able:

Parosphromenus deiss­neri “Licorice Gourami” is prob­a­bly the most com­mon of the group. I believe this to be one of the larger of the species, grow­ing to just around 1.75″. But do not count it out because of its small size — this Labyrinth fish packs an amaz­ing amount of color in its small stature! Its body has two hor­i­zon­tal black lines against three con­trast­ing hor­i­zon­tal tan lines run­ning down its body, and vibrant blue fins. This fish really stands out in any aquar­ium!

The last two types we are offer­ing are Parosphromenus fil­a­men­to­sus “Fil­a­ment Licorice Gourami”, which has the same mark­ings as its cousin, but has a spade-​tail that is col­ored red and bor­dered with black and blue. The other is Parosphromeus ornat­i­cauda “Ornate Licorice Gourami”, one of the small­est of the group at just over an inch! This fish is a darker color of brown and the lines are not as promi­nently black as its other cousins. The fins are black with bright white bor­ders on both the anal and dor­sal fin.

Well, I hope this enlight­ens some of you about another part of the hobby. (…)

I (PF) com­ment here only that this reveals that the so-​called “deiss­neri” is not that species (it’s usu­ally not that species). Where do I know? Because of the remark (in the descrip­ton of fil­a­men­to­sus) that it had a spade-​tail. The true male deiss­neri has too, even a fil­a­ment sim­i­lar to fil­a­men­to­sus. On the other hand are the colour mark­ings very dif­fer­ent. Com­pare the pic­tures in our species-​descriptions. But which species is this alleged “deiss­neri” in fact? It’s impos­si­ble to say by that descrip­tion. The “vibrant blue fins” may indi­cate “blue line” (from Suma­tra), which is very often in trade in the last years (and mostly called “deiss­neri”), but it’s not described exactly enough to exclude many other pos­si­ble species or vari­ants.
Any­way: There are deal­ers who try to make licorice gouramis more pop­u­lar and their rec­om­men­da­tions are, gen­er­ally speak­ing, quite right.

Peter,

Thank you for very much for post­ing my notes on this web­site. I find it to be very reward­ing to know that you took the time to acknowl­edge my efforts to make Parosphromenus species more desir­able among hob­by­ist. Mr. Gold­stein has recently intro­duced me to this web­site, and I look for­ward to learn­ing a lot more about this beau­ti­ful fish myself. I tried about 2 years ago to keep a pair of Licorice Gourami’s in a 5 gal­lon with some Boraras brigit­tae that was suc­cess­ful for about a year. Sadly I had to move and the fish were returned back to the shop. I am cur­rently get­ting ready to set a seam­less 12 gal­lon long for yet another Licorice Gourami Biotope. I am eager with antic­i­pa­tion for this next project. I believe I have decided on Parosphromenus parvu­lus for this tank.

I have posted a pic­ture of the P. deisnneri that we were sent. I will admit to not know­ing too much on these species myself, and when I had wrote these notes I should have done a lit­tle more research before com­plet­ing my notes. Per­haps this pic­ture of one of the fish from our hold­ing tank can help you iden­tify the cor­rect species. Though I am well aware it is prob­a­bly too young too tell.

Hope all is well!

–Anthony

I should also post on here what we are cur­rently avail­able to get through our sup­pli­ers. If any of you are inter­ested in any of these, please feel free to con­tact me at This email address is being pro­tected from spam­bots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I send out our mas­ter list every Fri­day. We are always want­ing to know what peo­ple are look­ing for. So please don’t hes­i­tate with your ques­tions. Thanks!

Parosphromenus Parvu­lus “Red Spot­ted Pygmy Licorice Gourami”
Parosphromenus Bin­tan “Bin­tan Licorice Gourami”
Parosphromenus Sin­tan­gen­sis “Green Speck­led Licorice Gourami”
Parosphromenus Linkei “Moon Spot Licorice Gourami”
Parosphromenus Sp. “Blue Line”
Parosphromenus anjun­ga­nen­sis “Angel Licorice Gourami”
Parosphromenus ornat­i­cauda “Ornate Licorice Gourami”
Parosphromenus Deiss­neri “Par­adise Licorice Gourami”
Paras­phromenus Fil­a­men­to­sus “Fil­a­ment Licorice Gourami”

–Anthony

Anthony, this is quite an impres­sive list! It’s rather sim­i­lar to the lists of fish that are avail­able in Europe, only parvu­lus is sel­dom sold here although the fish has the widest dis­tri­b­u­tion of any Parosphromenuswe know. In nature, it is very fre­quent indeed. But it is too small and too dif­fi­cult for the aver­age aquar­ist. Nev­er­the­less, for the spe­cial­ist the dis­play dance of a full-​coloured male is spec­tac­u­lar.
The “deiss­neri” that you posted a pho­to­graph of is hardly to deter­mine since it may be a female of a round-​tail Parosphromenus–species. It is very likely not true deiss­neri as it is not in 95% of all fish named like this in Europe. At any rate it is remark­able that it is not con­fused with sp. blue line or sp. Sen­tang (“sin­tan­gen­sis”), as it is often in our coun­try.
Did you order and sell any from this list? A rather well-​known species which is miss­ing in it although some­times sold in Ger­many is nagyi.

Peter,

I did not have any­one reply to this. The guy we are get­ting fish from out of Sin­ga­pore also shrunk his Parosphromenus list quite a bit. He now only has the fol­low­ing:

Parosphromenus Sin­tan­gen­sis
Parosphromenus Deiss­neri
Parosphromenus ornat­i­cauda
Parosphromenus Sp. Blue Line

We still have in stock our­selves this:

Parosphrone­mus parvu­lus
Parosphrone­mus ornat­i­cauda
Parosphrone­mus fia­men­tosa (few)
Parosphrone­mus deiss­neri

I know we don’t plan on order­ing for prob­a­bly 2 more weeks. So hope­fully he’ll be able to come up with some more. We have had P. nagyi in the past just so you know Peter. Any­way, if any one would like to get a hold of some of these fish don’t be afraid to con­tact me. Thanks again Peter for the help!