Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

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Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:34 pm

I found Beaufortia Leveretti/Gastromyzon Leveretti for sale.

What do you think about them?

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nhkg
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by nhkg » Wed Apr 19, 2017 2:55 pm


Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Fri Apr 21, 2017 5:09 pm

Yep, I gathered that much. I didn't get them. I asked my local shop about them. They don't have any at the moment but he'll let me know when they're about to order. He said they don't pick the species, as they sell them to them as "hillstream loaches" and it could be any hillstream loach but he said they send them pictures of the loaches so they get an idea what they order. He'll let me know once they're available and pass on the pictures to me. If I like any, he'll order for me.

Until then I'll search around and see if I come across anything I can get. There's no rush. I am sure the shrimp are doing perfect with no fish around :)

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nhkg
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by nhkg » Sat Apr 22, 2017 5:35 am

It is strange, that your options on buying fish are so much limmited. Where are you from?
Here in small country in Central Europe, I have plenty of options. Sellers send fish by train, so I need to travel only few kilometers. For example actual stock list of German fish wholesale, I can buy from via Czech reseller: http://katalog.vivarium.cz/ryby-na-objednavku

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sun Apr 23, 2017 5:00 am

Yes, very,very limited choice here. Hence I don't get tempted often at all. :lol: I live in Ireland.

I was hoping to find something like Gastromyzon ocellatus or Gastromyzon scitulus but I doubt I'll have such luck. I may try contacting some of the larger shops and see if they can order any of these but since I only want 5-6 fish,...I am not sure they'll bother.

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sat May 06, 2017 5:34 pm

The fish shop informed me they've ordered some hillstream loaches for me. The problem is I have no idea what type..We'll see in a few days.

NancyD
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by NancyD » Sat May 06, 2017 11:27 pm

Who knows what fish they may get. Look them over & see. You never know & they may be super cool!

It's very good that your LFS is willing to buy loaches "for you" on spec, keep up the good lfs karma, lol.
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Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sun May 07, 2017 4:13 am

Thanks Nancy. Yes, they've been very good to me over the years on numerous occasions, I can't even recall all of them. He ordered specific fish food for me before when I asked, that they don't carry in the shop normally, and gave me discounts on my latest bulks of fish I bought for my pond lately. He sold me the denison barbs at half the price I would pay in other shops. He almost always gives me an extra fish for the price when I bought schools, and also reduced an external filter to a price I would have got online the cheapest. And I never even asked either times for the discounts. He offered to help me out with fish quarters when my tanks broke over the years, etc...thankfully I didn't need to but I am really grateful for the support they offer.

They are a very small shop though and carry nothing fancy normally so I don't expect anything out of the ordinary because I don't think they have the same connections as the larger ones and he already told me they don't get much choice at ordering as they're just labelled "hillstream loach". I will feel bad if I don't buy the fish though so most likely I'll get what they got. I can always set up a bigger tank for them, the problem is I need a green algae ridden one which takes time. Plus, the idea was to have the type of fish in this specific tank that won't get me tempted to move them into the tropical pond :) Now I am tempted having a cold water pond too :lol: , though I can't squeeze one as big as the one I have but maybe a smaller one one day.. :D

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nhkg
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by nhkg » Sun May 07, 2017 12:46 pm

Hopefully you get some hillstream loach suitable for your tank.
I am waiting more than month for mine new hillstream loaches. The importer is very unreliable, but no one else can offer the fish I want (Gastromyzon punctulatus).

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sun May 07, 2017 5:08 pm

Yes, difficult to find the species one wants. I hadn't even known they're that hard to find here. I am pretty certain I've seen them sold over the years but when I wanted some, there's none around...

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Fri May 12, 2017 2:48 pm

Well guys, I got the loaches, 9 of them.

Unfortunately they seem to be to be beaufortia leveretti which aren't the smallest. However, before I bought them I asked the owner and he said definately not beaufortia leveretti but a similar species to them. He said if they were beaufortia leveretti, the supplier would have had it specified because they carry those too but these are "unnamed hillstream loach". I asked if he knew the locality, he said Indonesia. However, they look to me like beaufortia leveretti :)

The best pictures I have are a couple I took while the fish were in the shop which I have attached below. I tried yesterday but mine came out blurry as the fish were moving very fast. Today a lot of them are somewhere amongst the plants instead of on the glass.

I don't know if its the stress or something else but some of them are beige/light brown in colour and some dark brown. They're small, about 1.5 inch/3cm with some variation up and down

Image

Image

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sat May 13, 2017 3:37 am

Anyone daring to confirm the species ID of my loaches?

I've been watching them today trying to take a picture. As a rule they've decided to stick to the front glass instead of the back glass so I can't take a proper picture of the colour pattern.

I see that some of them are sort of pushing each other for a spot on the glass. And I saw some browsing the substrate as well, flying like mini rays in and out the planted area. These fish are very fast :lol:

I currently do have another tank which only has 5 platies in it, shrimp and snails. It also has extreme flow because I had nowhere else to put my old filters and in manufacutrer's stated rates it has a turnover of 20X. Over the last year I downsized on tank numbers so my current tanks are over-filtered....It is planted as well but not much algae in there. I reduced the temperature in there the other day, just in case I want to split the school of loaches in the future.

Long term I'll be looking to set up a pond for them too but for now they'll have to do in smaller quarters. I'll be doing daily water changes for the next week or so. I am going on holidays in a week....so not happy about leaving them unattended but they'll be fed from time to time.

Any ideas on best food. I feed all my fish new life spectrum, sinking pellets of all sizes and types. I've also got algae based ones from the same brand which contain tiny crustaceans as well. I am not sure how to make sure they eat? The pellets obviously move all the time due to the flow...I put some bloodworms in the tank today but lots of it went into the plants so who knows if they got any or not :) I know the shrimp did :)

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sat May 13, 2017 4:57 pm

I had to film the loaches when I saw two of them digging the substrate like corydoras do, so cute..sand flying around them...So far I see several qualities in just one small fish. They remind me of stingrays, corydoras, otocinclus and plecos, all in one little fish :lol: And their faces are adorable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQn1EX67XF0

And here is a picture of two of them hiding during the water change. You can see one dark brown and one light brown version. Why do you think that is? I read somewhere that males and females can be distinguished by the different colour morph but not sure about it...

Image

Here's a couple of more light brown ones.

Image

And one of the dark brown ones

Image

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nhkg
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by nhkg » Sun May 14, 2017 3:37 am

It is Beaufortia, but I cant tell which specie.
If Seriouslyfish is right, it might be kweichowensis:
http://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/be ... chowensis/

Dots on light and dark fish looks similar. I think, that light fish are just more stressed. Mine pleco do the same. When they feel good, they are dark. When they are stressed (for example during water change), they are much lighter.

Loachloach
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Re: Suggestions. A small fish in a small tank

Post by Loachloach » Sun May 14, 2017 4:50 am

Their colour description is light brown with dark brown spots and in all the videos I looked they are light brown like my light brown ones. Perhaps the dark brown ones are the stressed ones....I don't know. I am confused :lol:

They seem to like browsing the bottom a lot. Majority of them are on the substrate sifting rather than on the sides. They also seem to have dug under the ceramic pot I have in there and I saw one surfing in and out of there. They're also utilising the plant cover well and are in and out of the plants. I saw a couple on the plant leaves. . Other than that so far they're not very shy and they seem quite active little fish. I am very happy to have them.

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