Helen's new loach Hilton
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- Emma Turner
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- Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2005 5:07 pm
- Location: Peterborough, UK
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Helen's new loach Hilton
Today we drove over to Helen's and had a fun afternoon moving all the contents and equipment over from her old loach tank in the kitchen to a brand new bigger tank in the lounge. 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
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
East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
- helen nightingale
- Posts: 4717
- Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:23 am
- Location: London, UK
thanks Emma, the pictures came out really well you have nothing to worry about your whole-tank photo skills.
its Betsy thats waving at us. she was quite cross! in the pictures of them both togeter, you can see that betsy has one barbel on the front set. its a good way to tell them apart. also, she is blind in one eye, so sometimes she swims around the tank sideways, like she is inspecting the tank bottom with her good eye.
so far there has been no fighting, hopefully they got that out their system yesterday. there has been lots of exploring, and strangely, the harlequin rasboras and the R. ennealepis decided to explore the tank in 2 separate shoals.
I owe the biggests of thankyou's to Emma and Steve! they were fantastic
its Betsy thats waving at us. she was quite cross! in the pictures of them both togeter, you can see that betsy has one barbel on the front set. its a good way to tell them apart. also, she is blind in one eye, so sometimes she swims around the tank sideways, like she is inspecting the tank bottom with her good eye.
so far there has been no fighting, hopefully they got that out their system yesterday. there has been lots of exploring, and strangely, the harlequin rasboras and the R. ennealepis decided to explore the tank in 2 separate shoals.
I owe the biggests of thankyou's to Emma and Steve! they were fantastic
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- Doc
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Superb looking fish there. Some lovely and unusual patterns. Hope all goes well as they settle in to the new abode.
Now onto this..
Now onto this..
This I have to admit has me intrigued... Pictures pleasefish_frenzy wrote: my friend has the largest Yo-yo I have ever seen! He is almost 11 inches
So many species of fish yet so little time, space and money to keep them all...
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