Loaches Online Forum

Worton, in pics 8 and 9 of the ones you've posted I can clearly see what looks like an eye spot...

Not a Cobitis species in my opinion. The dorsal fin is to closely arrarnged towards the Caudal fin. My guess would be a Lepidocephalichthys for sure. Which one? Now thats the puzzle. Any info on area of the fish in question?


Graeme.

Shari wrote:Worton, in pics 8 and 9 of the ones you've posted I can clearly see what looks like an eye spot...

....which was my next angle of attack

The spot is central on the caudal peduncle, which is consistant with Emma's Lepidocephalichthys hasselti possibility. I think that rules out Acanthocobitis botia because the eye spot is very distinctively in the upper part of that area.

The reason that you can't read my link for worton is that it is in Polish. I was thinking outside the box. We are all assuming this fish is an "exotic".
Cobitis taenia is endemic to Poland....as is worton...so reading the pdf shouldn't be a problem. It is a threatened and protected species, but it's possible that one could have somehow got mixed in at a wholesalers or whatever? Just a thought

Martin.

Now you DO know that I grokked the polish connection, right? As to the species ID...I'll leave that to you experts. Already put in my little 2 cents.

Well I guessed.

Anyhow, currently, your USD 2c is worth CAD 2.31930c , so your opinion must have more intrinsic value up here than down there.

It's all good

Martin.

I walks away with Lepidocephalichthys berdmorei, which seems to be very variable at the moment.


Graeme.

Could be Graeme....






Martin.

Hey,

Wow, thats a lot of great new informations to read :).

Martin - this is not a young cobitis taenia for sure. I saw them few times and they look different from my fish and the second reason is that they spawn during the spring time - we got now -20C here and a middle of a winter ;)). However I was really stunned you posted link to polish site! :)

Emma - my fish looks exactly like this on your photos! It is also very close to Lepidocephalichthys berdmorei :]. I don't know how to say for sure what species I have :). Looking on the body coloration and a shape of a fish, my looks more like Lepidocephalichthys hasselti. I will try to take some better photos.

Graeme - my country is really strange if you go to pet shop and ask about the origin of a fish they will look at you like at crazy person then just shrug their arms and say "who cares? You buy it?". That's aslo nice sometimes since you pay half of US $ for a rare fish because they don't care what they sell :). I can only say that I found this single speciment in a tank with fresh import of kuhlis and I wanted dojo loach since they are really rare in my country :) - looks like I got something even more precious ;). Additional infromation that could help is that in another tank I saw few gastromyzon sp. which one - I have no idea :/.

Kuhli loach - which I guess would cause more interest hehe (looks like topic tittle is a bit wrong ;)) is alive but hide in really strange place - in a crack in a bogwood almost on a surface - it became active after lights go off :).

Now the question is what are demands of Lepidocephalichthys genus? I have to say that it's first time I ever hear about this genus :( so could anyone give me a bit of information how should I keep this little guy happy? I know that they like sand and are feeding by filtrating it through gills - I feed it yesterday with cyclops and fish looked really happy :) - lot's of sand to filtrate in searching of tasty cyclops :). I keep water temperature on 24C. There is a lot of water movement in a tank.

Thank you very much for you help guys! :)))

Edited:
It's me again ;).

I found this http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/le ... morei.html - so it could be a good idea to make about 30G tank with nice current and lots of rocks and bogwood for this little guy and a bunch of kuhlis? The tank fish are now in is my quarantine tank/breeding guppy tank. I also read they can need some algae in their diet - any ideas what should I feed this fish with?

Thank you one more time :)).

Edit 2:

Here are two next photos (showing caudal fin):





Fish is filtrating sand on these two photos.

I guess it will be not easy task to do photos of the belly :].

I would have to agree and say that the fish depicted in the photographs is most similar to L. berdmorei as Graeme suggested. I have seen some preserved specimens of the species and the fish that worton has looks awfullly similar.

Mike

actually hold on a sec, a few months ago i downloaded a paper maybe 35 pages in length on different khuli species with photos i printed it out...itll take me a lil while to find but Ill get back to this later in the day when I have time to rummage through some papers.

Mike

Hey,

what about this paper Mike? I'm really curious to see it! :)

Little Lepidocephalichthys berdmorei is doing fine. It loves bloodworms :) and catfish chips :), it's not interestd in flakes :/. I just wonder if there is any way to find a food it could filtrate from sand, maybe live bloodworms? What animals live in a sand?

Regards.

I wonder if it's the same paper that i keep Mike? I suppose if you can send me a copy we would see.

worton, I'm sure any foods that is in the substrate will be filtered out by the L. berdmorei. Mine often eats crushed flake that lie's on the substrate. Not there first choice food i must add.


Graeme.

I guess it's social fish and I have only single speciment :( it must feel horrible :/ - heh I have no idea when I will be able to buy few more :(.

Do yours enjoy their own company?

Regards.

Yes and No. From my personal sightings with the 5 i keep, i would say they are peaceful loaches regarding all other species around them. Males however are not comfortable with each other. I wouldn't class them as a "grouping" loach, more of a singleton with likings of seeing others around.

so maybe my loach is not so unhappy as I thought,

hey Mike take a look on this topic one more time :wink: .

Thanks.