Lots of cheni photos

[Whitey_MacLeod]

Lots of activity in the tank this evening. I managed to get a few decent pictures of some major sparring- looks like I might have a new alpha. The average temperature for the tanks dropped a few degrees recently, and it's resulted in a lot more activity.











Tubercular


All quiet down the other end of the tank










Group shot

(I didn't actually see the baby in the bottom right of this shot, which is why it's out of focus- new fry are really hard to spot against the sand)

[Graeme Robson]

Superb pictures!

[Jim Powers]

Cool!!
Its interesting to have the bloodworms for scale.

[Mad Duff]

Excellent pictures

[loachmom]

Lovely fish, Whitey.

[CrazyLoach]

Nice pictures, what kind of camera did you use?

[Emma Turner]

Great pics, Whitey. The youngsters are really cute.

Emma

[Whitey_MacLeod]

Cheers everyone. The babies are really entertaining to watch- the tanks right by my armchair in the front room, so I spend hours watching them.

Crazyloach- my camera is a fuji finepix s7000. It's discontinued now; the finepix s5700 seems to be the new version. These pictures were all taken on the manual setting- I never use the auto features and I prefer manual focus, so I can't comment on how good they are. I don't think the model of camera is as important as learning how to get the best out of it- I've seen great pictures taken on a 2 megapixel camera, and my own pictures have got a lot better as I've learnt which settings work best in each situation.

Jim, how's this for a sense of scale:


I should point out that these are fatter than most bloodworm, to the point where my white clouds struggle to swallow them.

[Jim Powers]

WOW!!

[Dirk_H.]

Hi,

I got a question: in this case the different between the gender is very hard.
at a picture you can see the tuberculars. Is this the only external different between male and female? Nothing more?
In a store, I could buy some P. cheni. They are maybe 30-40mm (~0,15 inch). At this large I can't see any different or the tuberculars.

Thanks.
Dirk

[mickthefish]

love the pics whitey, can i post a pic of a fish i recently got.
i thought it was P myersi but looking at your it now could be cheni's that i got.

mick

[Whitey_MacLeod]

Have you read this Dirk?

http://www.loaches.com/articles/sexing- ... yzon-cheni

There are differences in body shape and colour as well, but they won't be easy to spot in small fish.

These are the best photos I have of my two biggest fry- they're over an inch now, but still much less bulky than the adults. The second is a little bigger than the first.

I think the first is probably male, and the second maybe female, based on body shape and colour, but I'm really not sure. They both have visible tubercules at this size, but they're not easy to see. In less than ideal conditions such as a shop tank they might not show up.

Possibly male:


Female? Looks a lot like it's mum anyway:



Cheers mick- I'd love to see some pics of your fish. I've never really made a definite id of these guys, just always assumed they're cheni.

[mickthefish]

cheers mate, these are the best ive done so far the little buggers are camera shy.
see what you think.



Jims not said yours are'nt cheni so i think you were right in your ID.

cheers
mick

[Jim Powers]

When the fish are small, sexing them can be difficult. I usually look at them on the glass and look at the shape of the snout from underneath. Males tend to have a more squared off snout than females. But that can be difficult to see when they are young. Its good to have several specimens to compare.
As far as your fish Mick, I would say they are cheni using the measurments as shown in species index.
http://www.loaches.com/species-index/ps ... yzon-cheni

[Dirk_H.]

Hello,

thanks guys!

Unfortunally I didn't read the article, shame on me. I was looking for information, but I found only the reference to the tuberculars. My mistake.

Thanks so lot! Very lovely from you!!!

Best regards
Dirk