Loaches Online Forum

Emma your eyes are not playing tricks. It was a dried up angel fry. Must have been stuck in my transfer jar. I went and got it out last night. With my eye sight I am lucky to have seen it.

Thanks to everyone who comented so far. I respect and appreciate your advice as much now as I did when I was new here.

Martin, Emma, Jim, Helen, Graeme,and Mike you're the best. I am proud to be able to give something back.

I will be posting on the FW fourm. Check out my other babies.

Definitely too nice a tank to eliminate! Can't wait to see the saga as the little guy grows up.

Fantastic news Chris,

Martin has already pulled out my pictures of very young P.Cheni for comparison :-)

After having seen all of Emma's Sewellia fry pictures it does seem that all hillie young can look very similar when small. Given that this was found in the filter it would favour an egg scatterer like a Sewellia.

It would be nice to state that P.Cheni are easy to breed which would favour them but i think given that Cheni fry tend to stay buried in the substrate until markings become visible i think it would be unlikely that they would end up in your filter.

Speculation is fun but getting to see a fish develop is even more so, please post more pictures over the coming weeks :-)

LES..

Very exciting! Looking forward to more pictures.

Hi again Chris,

The pics of my Sewellia lineolata fry were taken only a few mins after being carefully removed from our Eheim external, which like your Fluval, is blackened out. I really don't think that is a Sewellia fry there, not only does it lack the pigment, but it is far too orange in colour.

Please don't think about stripping down your river tank again! We always enjoy hearing about it and seeing your pics, especially now that this has happened!

Emma

I knew I had these pics somewhere! This is a S. lineolata fry just seconds after discovery in a darkened Eheim external filter:



Highly pigmented, even though it had been living in total darkness.

Emma

I took these pictures at 7:00pm The little guy has grown 2mm since I last posted. He is doing well and developing some color. Feeding on frozen cyclops, live artemia, Hikari baby bites, asthaxin powder, and spirulina powder.

That's quite a little belly on that guy.
My first thought at looking at this pic (besides the belly) is that it is a schistura, perhaps a baby sumo. But then again...

Great pics Chris!

I can see a small amount of pigmentation in the dorsal fin, which Beaufortia kweichowensis do have........not that this probably means anything!

Emma

I can see where Jim is coming from with Schistura. I don't remember ever seeing a sucker-bodied hillstream plump up like that with eating, but of course Schistura do.

However, Chris doesn't have any in the tank. I'm thinking that we're in for another photographic journey of development like with Emma's Sewellia.

It would be so totally cool if it's one of the species Chris has that have not been bred before. My gut is with Emma's suggestion of Beaufortia. My second guess would be the Homaloptera.

Martin.

Chris did mention further down in the post that he had some sumo loaches in the tank.

OH! I missed that. In that case I'm definitely with you on the Schistura Jim. In the first picture you can quite clearly see a keel on the top side of the caudal peduncle in front of the tail. This is a typical Nemacheiline feature.

And of course Sumos have that strong dorsal marking.

Martin.

amazing photos Chris that tank is much too nice to take down, and this is quite exciting.

i hope between all you hillie experts you can get it sussed soon

Have there been any recorded captive breedings of Schistura? I do have three of them in the river tank. I only see them at feeding time. This is exciting!

The little guy will eat till bloated only when fed live BBS. I have some feeding time videos that I have not had the chance to upload to photobucket.

Hmm... It certainly has a Sumo belly

chris1932 wrote:Have there been any recorded captive breedings of Schistura? I do have three of them in the river tank. I only see them at feeding time. This is exciting!

S. Nicholsi, but there is no good account of it....maybe some other species too

Sumo's would quite likely be the first, both for the species and for a having an illustrated development process; so this is certainly a very nice achievement by you.

Please take as many photos as you can.