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Pics soon, like tonight I'll try to take some.

I frequent one of my LFSes, and I'm on pretty friendly terms with the fish-guy. Anyway, they ordered clown loaches, but instead got this really strange looking fish that I've never seen online or in books before.

They're small right now, 2-3 inches long. They have yellow and black bands-- the body with no fins looks kind of like an overgrown bumblebee goby. The dorsal and caudal fins have red, black and white, and the .. uh, swimming fins are large and round. They suck on things, so I thought it may be a kind of hillstream loach.

I just purchased two of these for a 55g. They had them mixed with trops in their tank (parrot fish, keyholes, and some dwarf plecs from what I saw), so they may not be as coldwater dependant as most other hillstreams.

Again, I'll get the pic ASAP. Any ideas would be welcome They're really freaking cute!

sounds interesting but i have no clue

Your decription intrigues me enormously! Post pics SOON!!!!!

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Aaah, I am not technologically inclined! I stole one of dad's cameras and tried to take pictures, but none of them were clear at all.. I'm gonna have to wait until he comes home later tonight to show me how to use it.

These little guys are so shy... they dart away as soon as I get near with the camera!

PICS!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/smantzer/Mysteryfish03.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/smantzer/Mysteryfish02.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/smantzer/Mysteryfish01.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/smantzer/Mysteryfish00.jpg

i'd say it looks like an otocinclus species, but i may be wrong - my search on planetcatfish didn't turn up any similar coloration in the otocinclus species they have listed... i'd explore planetcatfish to see if you can find something.

edit - hey this is my 1000th post! (only taken 4 1/2 years)

Last edited by meriadoc at 03-Mar-2005 22:14

Nope, it can't be a catfish because it has scales.

It's definitely a loach or another fish related to loaches. It looks to me like some Garra species.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

Too big to be an oto, too. I measured the biggest one, and he's 3.5 inches right now. I don't know much about loaches, but perhaps I'll do some reseaerch. the LFS guy told me to find out for him what it is

Oh, they seem to enjoy eating on dead vegetation on my plants... they also stick close together, like schooling... and those two things DO remind me of otos. Hmmm.

Last edited by smantzer at 03-Mar-2005 22:42

I'll take a first shot at it. I think it's an otocinclus jumbo (pitbull). I got one of these guys it kinda looks like the one i got. My guess

Gee

Gee

!!I think I just learned somthing new!!

It's a scaled fish. Therefore not a loach or catfish.

The aforementioned suggestion about it being a Garra species is probably the closest thus far. However, an extensive Google trawl on Garra species yields few images. However, the body shape of many Garra species is more elongate than this, and many resemble Crossocheilus siamensis morphologically. Garra taeniata is the False Siamese Algae Eater, and requires close inspection to tell it apart from the true Crossocheilus siamensis.

I suspect it's a Cyrpinid of some sort, but hunting around thus far has yielded little. If you can obtain more of them, and sit around and wait for one of them to expire some years in the future, you could then send the expired one to a museum for taxonomic analysis, but I gather you want a quicker turnaround than this!




Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

Well, it's definitely not a catfish, due to reasons already stated above. There is also no doubt in my mind this specimen is some sort of cyprinid; a river sucker of sorts. It's safe to assume that this fellar will grow very large; pushing 12" at the MINIMUM. Disregarding it's long, trailing pectorals, it's markings are reminescent of the northern hogsucker.

Cory is probably right: it looks very similar to garra sp.

Could you try and take a mouth shot? False siamensis have a distinctive mouth structure.


Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 04-Mar-2005 01:40

12" minimum?! And here I thought I was gonna have a cute little hillstream loach species....

I couldn't get a shot of its actually mouth sucking on like, the glass... they all came out blurry for some reason, but I did get one in the front of its snout on the gravel. Would it help? If so, I'll post.

I have two of these already, so it's safe to say when one of them dies, I'll be taking it in for investigation.

Additionally, I did a little feeding test last night. I dropped in an algae wafer and a sinking carnivore pellet. They leapt at the canivore pellet and left the algae wafer there.

One is also smaller and less intensely colored than the other. Female?

They had about 6 of them at the LFS, so I may get more just to find out. So right now, the majority says garra sp.?

EDIT OF EDIT: Oh, they really do look like garra sp.

Last edited by smantzer at 04-Mar-2005 11:28

Just in case it is a loach, you can post links to the pictures at this loach forum:http://aquaweb.pair.com/forums/loach/
There are many loach experts there who can tell you for sure..

Last edited by girlunderrainbow at 04-Mar-2005 20:55

[link=Here]http://www.fishbase.org.ph/ListByLetter/ScientificNamesG.htm" style="COLOR: #FFFFFF[/link] is a page with all the known Garra spp.

Good luck; most of the profiles don't have pictures.

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I'm not your neighbor, you Bakersfield trash.

The site isn't working for me.. it's saying: "Error Diagnostic Information
An error occurred while attempting to establish a connection to the service.

The most likely cause of this problem is that the service is not currently running. You can use the 'Services' Control Panel to verify that the service is running and to restart it if necessary.

Windows NT error number 2 occurred."

*kicks Windows*

Either way, I'll tell him the suspicions we have so far of what it is, and see if that'll give him any leads of his own.