Borneo Suckermouth catfish with possible parasite?

[daemondamian]

Hi fellow fish folks,
I have a hypostomus or hill stream loach that I bought 1 or 2 years ago under the name of a borneo suckermouth catfish. I have just noticed something on the underside of his [or her's] belly that I think might be a parasite [either callamanus, or some kind of worm] but I'm not sure.

I've put some photos in my photobucket album here:

http://s21.photobucket.com/albums/b253/ ... ckermouth/

Is that normal or more likely an actual parasite?

Thanks
Damian.

[Doc]

Unless I am going blind all I can see is the fishes anal fin..

[Ashleigh]

Unless I am going blind all I can see is the fishes anal fin..

+ 1


Ashleigh

[mickthefish]

+2.
as far as i can see it's the first ray of the anal fin.

mick

[Martin Thoene]

That looks like Gastromyzon scitulus and you're looking at the anal fin. The pale oval in front of it is the anus.

Here's the fin opened out.....



Check out multiple pictures of this species here:

http://www.loaches.com/species-index/ph ... age-search

Martin.

[daemondamian]

Thanks everyone for your replies, photo and identification
[which was spot on from only seeing the underside of the
fish!]

I can see and understand now that the 'parasite' is indeed
not a parasite but simply part of the fish anatomy- the
anal fin and it appears like that as it is folded up.

I'm quite relieved now ...

Best regards
Damian.