Loaches Online Forum

As promised, here are some pictures of the 8ft loach display tank, which I overhauled last week. Unfortunately, there is not as much bamboo in there as I would have liked, because, despite my best efforts, I could not get all of the XL pieces (150mm in diameter) to sink.

This is the first time I have replaced the bamboo in well over 4 years, so it did last for quite a long time. I must add that this tank is part of a powerfully filtered, sizeable sofwater fish system and receives at least 2 large water changes per day. I would not recommend using bamboo (or at least this sort of quantity of bamboo) in the home aquarium as it does rot down into the water. This isn't an issue in this tank for the above reasons.

I took some 14ft lengths of bamboo of various diameters and cut them into the lengths I wanted. Some tall to reach the top of the tank, and some shorter ones to take plants. These lengths were stuck to large pieces of flat slate with a 2-part marine putty which is normally used for marine rockwork construction and fragging corals etc. You have limited time to work with this stuff once kneaded together. After this dried, I emptied the tank of it's previous decor and started adding the new bamboo/slate combos. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, a lot of it did not want to sink, so we drilled several small holes in the back of each piece in order for it to take in water and expel the air. Most pieces then sunk, but a few still did not want to. I think the tank looks a little bare in places because of this, so at some point I will add more motherplants to the tank to compensate for this.







And here are some of the inhabitants:

First off, the loaches!

Some of the 15 clown loach specimens checking out the bamboo hidey holes:


Clown loach with a large sized L007 Tooth Nose Pleco and a Botia kubotai in the background:


Botia dario:


Botia striata:


Another large sized B. striata (gravid?) alongside a jumbo Corydoras sterbai:


Botia kubotai:




again, alongside one of the giant Corys:


Botia histrionica:


One of the 10 XL Corydoras sterbai, which have bred in this tank before now:


Congo Tetras:


Some baby Garra flavatra, added a few days ago. They are probably 1.5"TL:




And the beautiful angel fish that we have rehomed for a long-term customer of ours, who has unfortunately had to give up fishkeeping because of her ill-health. These were sold to her at another shop as altums, but we are not 100% sure on that. Shari, I'd be interested to hear what you think. Their behaviour is not typical for 'standard' angel fish. These are very mild mannered and often shoal together. A couple of specimens have slightly ragged finnage following the move, but this is now coming back nicely.







And finally, here is a short video clip of the tank, please turn the sound down to avoid camera refocus noise:

http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k183/ ... CN8432.flv

I apologise if the 'still' pics showing the entire tank appear too bright. Despite being able to take close-up pics of my fish, I have trouble taking pics of actual whole tank set-ups. They usually appear too dark, so I switch to Auto mode, which then seems to make things too bright.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the photos.

Emma

Nicely done Emma. Great pictures and beautiful fish.

Wow! Love what you've done with the bamboo! Looks really pretty

And last August............



It looks great Emma. A totally terrrific Tiki-tank

Martin.

Nice tank/pics. Thanks for sharing. How big are the kubotais Emma? Just curious. And on a non-loach issue - in one of your pics the sterbai appears to have a pointed dorsal fin - is there sexual dimorphism in sterbai, i.e., can one tell males from females other than by body shape?

Absolutely great, Emma. A flagship for loach care. With the bamboo, it's the only instance I would EVER suggest putting artificial decor in a tank, but if it breaks down, why not look for a plastic or ceramic alternative? If it's not actually alive and growing, why not find a good replacement?

I'm so happy we have nutters like you out there!

Wow! Real nice. These Striata's are incredible...salivating.

How large are they?

Yes, Emma, I'd say those are P. Altum.
Notice the dorsal edge of the body running up into the fin and the fainter bars that are between the black bars on the body. Also, the mouth is much more extended than scalare would be, though they also tend to have a notch near the eye, it is not so pronounced.
Lovely fish. How big are they and how many?


Lionel Fichen's Pterophyllum Altum

Very nice!

Superb!!

Those angels are enormous. I couldn't believe it when I saw them!

Thank you all for the great comments!

Mark, I've been looking for a man-made replacement for the XL pieces of bamboo for years, but to no avail. It is actually very hard to find suitable decor to furnish XL display tanks. I am pretty pleased that the old bamboo lasted as long as it did though, and I kept it in there as long as I could. Hopefully this batch will last just as long.

Thank you Shari for your opinion on the angels. They are real beauties. The lady we got them off of had 6 in total and had grown them on from when they were wild-caught as small specimens, so they've always been together. Size-wise, it's difficult without actually holding up a ruler or tape measure, but TL I would say would be around 7-8", height-wise (including the long trailing fins) they must be over 12".

bslindgren, I'd say most of the B. kubotai were 3" TL. I'm honestly not sure about the dorsal fins of the Corydoras sterbai. I would tend to go by the body shape when viewed from above for a reliable sexing method.

mikev, the Botia striata vary in size, but I think the ones in the photo are also about 3" TL. It is hard to get a proper idea of size when they are positioned next to those deceptively large Corys. They have got be over 7cm TL themselves.

Emma

Emma,

Sorry for the OFT question but I'm really curious.

There seem to be two types of Striata patterns: either there are 6-7 double stripes, separated by light grey, or light gray is fully gone and the entire fish is covered by stripes. Is this simply how the pattern evolves?--stripes expand as the fish matures?

mikev wrote:There seem to be two types of Striata patterns: either there are 6-7 double stripes, separated by light grey, or light gray is fully gone and the entire fish is covered by stripes. Is this simply how the pattern evolves?--stripes expand as the fish matures?

I'm not entirely sure. The pattern definitely evolves as the fish mature. This is one of the largest, most mature B. striata I have seen (belongs to my dad) and it's pattern is most impressive:



Compare that with a typical juvenile pattern:


It would seem that the dark grey/black areas expand to fill more of the light cream coloured stripes, leaving thinner yellow divisions once the fish is larger and older.

Emma

Yep, sounds like this. Would be nice to see "an evolution of Striata markings" one day. Needless to say, but your Dad's Striata is fantastic.