Botia almorhae - from the Czech Republic....

[helen nightingale]

they are very interesting pictures. i noticed in the 3rd one down a very colourfull one to the side of the picture. i think im with Mad Duff on this one. if i had a spare tank, id buy them for investigative purposes to see what they turned out like. to me some of them look very striata like, others not as they seem to be holding their barbels wrong. i would be curious as to which pure species they would bond with.

as they are healthy fish with presumably less likelihood of parasites, then that is probably good. i would be worried about unpredictable behaviour though. it seems like with people not as keen as those you find here, people buy "loaches" and say they have a loach, just as people say they have goldfish or koi. these people probably wouldnt worry about the fish being a bit of a mixture as long as they look nice and are not terrors. so maybe if people that are not loach-nutters were to buy more of these fish, there would be more left in rivers to breed naturally.

there is a cichlid shop i know that will not sell the wild caught stock to inexperienced cichlid keepers, which i reckon is a very good idea.

MaD Duff, please could you post photos as your ones develop?

[cybermeez]

I've looked at the pictures again and the impression I get over and over again from the multiple pictures is there's some striata in there. It's something about the overall appearance of the head.

Perhaps it's that little rosy nose?

[Graeme Robson]

[Mad Duff]

MaD Duff, please could you post photos as your ones develop?

Will do Helen, I will post some pictures as soon as I pick them up