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Don't know if I have the right forum or not, but I'm trying to find more information on this fish, as I got two free with some botia sidthimunkis I ordered.

I tried google and the whole run of searches and the only place with actual stats or facts was all in german, lol. I'm trying to find out the max length, diet, and any characterisitcs / compatibility issues it might have, among any other tidbits of information I can come across.

Even Loaches Online only has a pic, but no real information. http://www.loaches.com/species_images/schistura_subfusca_01_large.jpg

Anyway, if anyone knows this fish or has some info on it, it'd be appreciated.

Muddying the waters, could your fish possibly be Schistura mahnerti (Burmese-border sand loach)?

http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/schistura_mahnerti.html

My lfs sells them. He says thier a new species from asia and aren't documented yet.

That is a distinct possibility, heaven2. I might have to wait for them to grow out a little more. The two fish are very similar, but the ones I have seem to have less red in the middle section of the tail fin than the picture of the zebra loach, and no red leading edges on the other fins , but yet more red in the tail than the pictures of the burmese border sand loaches. Good food and time will tell I guess, so hopefully before they come out of quarantine I'll have a positive ID. Thanks for the link!

The more I look at them, I am convinced they are burmese-border sand loaches. Their tail is not fully red, nor do they have any redness on their other fins. That, and the fact that every internet picture I could find of the schistura subfusca has a ? next to it, and looks exactly like the burmese-border leads me to believe the exporter-mislabeled story as told on loaches.com . I know not every fish of a species is going to look exactly like a picture, but the only legitimate picture of a red tailed zebra loach I can find does not look like what I have in my quarantine tank, so I believe you are right, heaven2. Thanks again.

Well, whichever it turns out to be, I think you got a lucky find.

Congrats on your sidthimunkis too! I've read they can be hard to find. Sids sound like affable very nice loaches. I keep clowns - even if I could find sids, I've no room to add more fish. Maybe one day...