yoyos

[mikev]

Sexual dimorphism? I wonder if the lady on the right and in the 2nd picture is mildly gravid? (the fish is 1 year old at 3.5")



(Incidentally, the smaller fish is actually chasing the other one---they were doing this all evening, with most of the chasing by the "male" but occasionally, the other way.)



(No, she is not normally this bent...)

Now, the real question: I wish I had a better picture, but you can see even here that her mouth has some white around it: do other yoyo owners see something like this on their fish?

Reason for asking is to eliminate the possibility of the flexibacter infection. The chances of this are pretty slight :it does seem to be pigmentation, not any kind of growth, the fish has been around for long time, the tank is clean and even understocked, nitrates are low, and the tank also has rainbows which are much more prone to this infection. It also did not respond to a couple of serious rounds of treatment (notice the green water) which should have cured flexibacter if it is...

[Mad Duff]

I picked this Yoyo up at the weekend and its mouth looks the same as the mouths on yours from what I can tell, this one is only a juvenille and is only around 2"




It needs a little fattening up and it will be happier once it has a few friends but it seems quite at home with the 8 Striatas for company for now.

[mikev]

Thanks, Mad Duff,

Yeap, your fellow looks like a juvenile, the pattern is still nice and bright....probably for no more than about 3-4 months. As for the fattening: he looks pretty fit. IME, they become fat only at a slightly larger size, and not all: out of my five, none skinny, but only two are really fat, making me think "females". These two are the ones that I can see the white on the mouth (one more than the other).

The white area that worries me is a bit larger. I finally managed to catch it on a photo (which is only slightly out of focus ) : is this normal or not? :





(it does look now that most of the white is inside the mouth...which is probably normal)

The fish ate already $40 worth of drugs with no changes to its appearance... (I'm slightly paranoid about flexibacter given that the treatment does not always succeed and I lost a couple of barbs to it in the past....but maybe i've been torturing this tank for no good reason..)

[Mad Duff]

To be honest Mike they look perfectly normal to me

I have had Yoyo's before and they were all pretty fat and all had this white area around the mouth so maybe it could be a sexual dimorphism thing either way it seems pretty normal.

[Graeme Robson]

Yeah the Botia almorhae are the Mick Jagger's in the Botia World.

[The.Dark.One]

Mike

If it is possible without disturbing your loaches, could you do me a favour?

On both specimens pictured, could you see if their ventral fins reach the anus, are short of it, or go past it.

Many thanks

[helen nightingale]

Dark One, is that a sexing aid?

[The.Dark.One]

Dark One, is that a sexing aid?

Hi Helen

No, it's to aid me in my quest to resolve the birdi / almorhae / rostrata issue.

I'm still waiting on some images of preserved specimens, and may need to visit the Natural History Museum in London, but Andy and I are hopeful we can publish our views on the issue early next year.

Best wishes

[mikev]

all had this white area around the mouth

Thanks, Mad, this actually makes me feel much better. I looked at a number of yoyo's photos to make sure, did not see the white area on any fish, and decided to treat just in case. I'll leave it alone from now on, treatment is not working anyway...

On both specimens pictured, could you see if their ventral fins reach the anus, are short of it, or go past it.

It seems that on all four yoyo's in tank "short of it" applies.
(Only *seems* -- it is a bit difficult to observe their underside in this tank. It is a bit weird: in the old 29g tank they used to swim up and down all the time. In the new 125g they never go to the surface, but run at high speeds near the bottom of the tank..., very little loachy dancing and no more surface clicking )

I'll take another look tomorrow to make sure.

[The.Dark.One]

Thanks

[The.Dark.One]

Mikev

Any chance please of lateral images of both of the sexes, and one of a close up of the head (from the side)?

Do you have any images of them when they were smaller?

They look perfectly healthy to me, I wouldnt be inclined to medicate them.

Cheers

[Martin Thoene]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it

Martin.

[Wendie]

Here's a close up of one of my girls taken about three months ago....

[mikev]

Mikev

Any chance please of lateral images of both of the sexes, and one of a close up of the head (from the side)?

I'll try to do this. I did intend to "inventory" them.

Do you have any images of them when they were smaller?

Quite unfortunately, no, I did take them and cannot find them anymore.

But here is a bit of extra info:

Back in January this group started as 3 normal pattern yoyo's plus 2 alternative patterns, all at 1" (all are alive, I am only having trouble catching the last one:oops: ...the last one is a longer likely-male with an alt pattern.). TBH, I wanted to see if the alternative pattern is the way to know almorhae vs lohachata(cf. your almorhae/birdi issue)... For several months the alternative pattern fish grew a little faster, but in the last couple of months the effect was replaced by what I think is faster female growth, so I have nothing interesting to report now.

They look perfectly healthy to me, I wouldnt be inclined to medicate them.

Cheers

Not torturing them anymore. Not that they should complain about all the extra water changes they got in the last month...