Her house is really beautiful and in such a lovely area (Mark you would love the big kitchen windows for bird watching). I was hoping to see the peacocks but they didn't appear in the rain. Anyway....Helen's tanks and fish were a superb sight and although I think she was a little bit worried about moving them, she needn't have been as all went smoothly. 
Basically, seeing as both Hels and I are on the short side, and both old and new tanks are fairly high, we were able to boss Steve about and get him to do most of the hard work, he he! 
This provided an ideal opportunity to have a closer look at the loaches, in particular the wildly patterned Botia striata and the XL Botia almorhae. We put a ruler in the polybox to get a measurement of the big Botias, and I also managed to put a few specimens in one of my photo tanks, although you will appreciate the fish are greyed out compared to their normal dark markings.This is the boss of the tank, a gravid Botia striata:
Here is the absolutely amazingly patterned B. striata (different both sides), a slightly smaller specimen:
It's a shame the loach moved forward just as I took this. I kept the pic because it shows how the beautiful markings carry onto the leading edge of the dorsal fin:
Betsy & Bertha (I'm not sure which one's which). The largest one appears to be 6" TL exactly:
The markings on these two are incredible (even when looking down on them) and my pics here do not do them justice!
One of them waving at the camera:
And the other one (this is the bigger one):
I may take lots of fish pics, but I always have trouble taking full tank shots. Here is Helen's new tank complete with all the contents and equipment of the old tank. We saved all the water from the old tank and did not realise how short on water we would be! Helen's RO unit had an airlock yesterday - which Steve has now sorted - and so we didn't have any new RO water to top up the new tank with today (but this won't matter as Helen can top it up over the next couple of days).
We just put all the bogwood and plants in randomly as we thought it best to get everything done as quickly as possible today. Hels can move it about at a later date - besides the loaches didn't mind!
And finally a shot of me and Helen relaxing after it was all finished:
Helen, thank you so much for the flowers and Steve says thank you for the chocolates - you know you really shouldn't have!
I am sure Hels will give us plenty of updates on how the fish are taking to their new home, and hopefully some more pics.
Emma
