A nice little surprise

[mfskarphedin]

I know it's no big deal anymore these days, what with all the concentration on breeding Hillstreams and such, but I just thought I'd pop by after years away from LOL and post a little brag about pulling more Kuhlis out of my 55 gal planted tank today than I put in it about 7 years ago. Well...

They're not adult-size yet, so I'm not sure if they're regular Kuhlis or Giant Kuhlis. They seem to have markings similar to my Giants. It would be great if that's what they are, since I prefer that species.

And I also found my original Kuhli (some weird variety), who I haven't seen in literally months and thought had died. I've had him for 10 years now!

See ya,

Kristen

[mikev]

IMHO, having kuhli breeding is major and more interesting than hillstreams....of course, if this is something you can repeat Congradulations!

Where are the pictures?

You might be able to figure out if these are "Regular or Giants" by patterns.

[mfskarphedin]

Really? hmm...lol It's just a couple extra, I assume because of predation of the fry. Frankly, as one of the first people to really take an interest years ago on Usenet in raising public awareness about Hillstreams and research into their proper care, I'd probably pass right the hell out if I managed to breed them! Unfortunately, equipment failure killed two tankfuls in as many years, and I forced myself to give up until I can afford a proper chiller and UPS backup system for them (though in Seattle where we're moving, I don't think I'd need the chiller?)

Anyway, well, I'll see if I can grab some pics this afternoon - they're understandably extra-skittish with the tank move. And the water's still kind of cloudy in the new tank from the Profile dust. The old tank was nothing special, just thickly-planted with Rubin Swords and African Water Fern on driftwood - very well-oxygenated with no CO2 addition. Profile substrate, Eheim 2217, kept cool at about 72*F, some Rummy-nosed Tetras and Cherry Barbs. Excellent, excellent well water - pretty soft and acidic, very high iron content. Maintenance got sloppy over the last few years in terms of cleaning up plant debris and doing lots of water changes (mmm, mulm!), but the water quality was still good, because of the plants and the fact that I only had about 20 fish total. And...that's it!

I'm downsizing them from 55 to 29 gals and will hopefully be setting up a nice little Hillstream river tank (I hope a 4-ft custom-built acrylic tank) sometime this fall or coming winter. I really love the Gastromyzons and Pseudogastromyzons, and being on the west coast soon, I'm expecting to be able to have access to a variety of species. All, and I mean, all LFSs here in seacoast NH stopped carrying them, because they or their customers couldn't keep them alive. Uhh, Kuhlis, too for that matter.

See ya,

Kristen

[mikev]

A-ha. A heavily planted tank.--looking forward to pictures!

My kuhlis are mostly in unplanted tanks shared with other loaches now (to be changed) so while I have several very gravid girls, no babies so far.

As for hillstreams: I picked up a dozen Gastros (3 species mix) about a month ago in NY; there are some still at the store. Pseudogastros were, otoh, a disaster: they came together with some nasty diseases and it took me too long to find a drug that work...so I have only one Cheni, sharing the tank with Beaufortias. An interesting character: it turns out he likes bloodworms, and while usually he is on the receiving end, when he senses bloodworms, he goes on the rampage. Same place has about 200 kuhlis (out of quarantine around Sunday.... I might end up adding some more to my knots: I have more kuhlis right now than makes sense, but in a set of 200 there certain to be some unusual fish.)

[mfskarphedin]

Oh, man, I love Beaufortia! Hmm, should see if the old pics of mine are still in the gallery here...nope. Anyway, those two tankfuls I lost were both mostly Beaufortia kweichowensis. I literally bawled my eyes out.

Ok, I just now caught the last or second-to-last "new" kuhli from the old tank. Had to use a pond net as a trap and a food tablet as bait, lol. When he went in, I snuck over soooo slowly...reeeeached for the handle...and snagged him up! I put him in a fishbowl for a photo shoot.

I then put the tablet into the new tank to bring out all the other Kuhlis. I took some pics of them and a 2-minute movie of the feeding frenzy. They are definitely much larger than this particular guy I just caught; I can tell he's a juvenile. There's another already in the tank that's almost all black that I don't recognize, too.

I'm going to set the trap again, because I'm not sure if there's another one left. I hope so!

Pics here: http://www.deviantart.com/view/36955628/

Anyway, after carefully studying the Giants, I can see that both of them have one thing in common: they have a regular row of thin orange stripes that completely circumscribe their bodies. One has other markings, the other is otherwise completely black. The regular Kuhlis don't have such a regular set of markings, and neither do the new ones, so I think they're the same species.

The 10 year old one is maybe Pangio shelfordii? The swirls of markings on the other side of him are amazing, whatever he is.

See ya,

Kristen

[mikev]

Nice pix, Kristen, and nice loaches.

OK, here is the official part: the "Giant Kuhlis" are Pangio Myersi, the "Regular Kuhlis" previously known as Pangio Kuhlis, are now P. semicincta.

There was a discussion of what is Myersi and what is semicincta a while back, on the Kuhlis can be Weird thread.

The base definition is that Myersi are regular with rectangular bars, usually feature orange, and their bars go all the way to the belly, without narrowing down; Semicincta are usually irregular and trapesoid.
The additional criteria is that Myersi's tail usually is 2/3 or more black, while Semicincta is 1/2 black.

Notice that it has never been reliably proven that these are two species and that there are only two species involved; and I have serious doubts about it.

Based on this definition your Giant Kuhlis are Myersi's, but your Regular kuhlis are something in-between, and so are the kids: they have some Myersi characteristics but not all. For example, I see no Orange but the 2nd small loach has reasonably regular (not narrowing and deep) stripes and lots of black on its tail. Your 10-year old is fairly regular striped too. ==> it is possible that you have mostly Myersi there, even if some are not "textbook".

It is not fully clear right now, but it surely would be interesting to know who are the kids and the parents.

OK, maybe the way is to try to systematize this a bit. Just how many kuhlis are there (hopefully not too many), what are the known sexes, are all of them shown on the pictures?

[mfskarphedin]

Semicincta? That's a new one on me; I've been away for far too long, I guess, lol.

Anyway, re: "Loaches are sometimes weird," I'm sure also my two big ones are myersi, since they both have 11 & 13 non-narrowing stripes (I'm counting black stripes, not including the tail but including the head, so don't know if I'm doing it right.) Both tails are almost all black. They are also significantly larger than any of the other loaches. Plus, if it means anything, they came from a reputable LFS that was good about trying to be accurate with species names, and they were actually labelled as myersi.

Side notes on that thread: yes, I've seen that page with the wild-collected specimens - very good thing to have! And I've also had "kuhlis" change their pattern with that fading thing, as well, I think. You can see it in my "Kuhli" and "Second Giant" photos - just on their sides along the belly. Never thought anything unusual about it. I'll have to read the whole thread sometime later today when I have the time. Too bad so many of the pics seem to be missing.

I did notice the reasonably-regular striping on the small one in the fishbowl, and the other side was even more so - very myersi-like. The one that's mostly black, he does have some striping also on the side you can't see, but I can't remember how regular it is, and he's not out right now. I'll try to check him out, at least, if not get a pic later.

I didn't consider one thing: crossbreeding? Hmm, dunno if that's possible genetically? One thing about the "regular kuhlis" is that I read on here yesterday that myersi always have three black bands on their head (I'm defining "head" as operculum and everything in front of it.) All my striped loaches have those three bands, except the 10+ year-old one. Whatever the others are, he is definitely a different species. I've got to get a photo of his other side - it's amazing, the pattern. His color is also very different, an almost iridescent gold. Very, very pretty.

As for a tally of what I've got: 3 Java Loaches (just for the record,) 4-5 "regular/unidentified kuhlis" including the new ones, 2 myersi, and the 10+ year-old. Each variety was purchased from the same batch at the same time: one source for each variety. Sexes are unknown, but I suspect I have a male/female pair of myersi.

I don't have clear photos of them all (the regular ones,) and most of them have different patterns on each side of their body to complicate things! The one "Kuhli" I showed in my photos is the most typical and regularly-marked of them all, and the largest, I believe.

Ok, I hope that covers everything, lol. I'm kinda random this morning... o.O

See ya,

Kristen

[mamaschild]

BEAUTIFUL Kuhlis :)

[mikev]

Since kuhlis are not bred every day, it is probably worth an effort to make a gallery of everyone involved (both sides) and look for similarities.... who knows...

There is no certainty about the Myersi/Semicincta division or the number of the species involved; for all we know they can breed together and it would not be cross-species.... The only way we can learn this is by (1) performing such a breeding and (2) making sure that the offsprings are (or are not) sterile. Having a photo gallery may be one way to approach it.

Myersi sexing is fairly easy: any female that you had for a year would be very fat with eggs...or have obvious stretch marks.

Buying from the same source/at the same time is unf. meaningless: kuhli shipments are mixed up by suppliers/distributors in crazy ways.

On shape-shifting: I doubt you have any of these among yours; they look *very* different. My Leper kuhli has a maze of broken bars. No picture, sorry, I have not seen all of him for a few months: only pieces stick out from under a log...

[mfskarphedin]

Well, we're supposed to be moving again in about 2 months, so I'll be taking all the fish out of the tank and bagging them for a plane trip. I can photograph them then, I guess.

I'm giving away all my other tropicals except the otto and the loaches. Re-stock on the west coast!