Mystery Loach

[Suzanne]

Greetings. I've got a mystery loach and I can't photograph the little bugger yet. I've tried with no luck. If I may give a description, I hope it can help. I'll post a picture if I can ever get one!

The loach is about 3 inches long. His body is narrow. His head is quite long and very pointed. He is golden tan with black bands. The black bands are about twice as wide as the gold between. I can't count the bands exactly but there are roughly 15 on his body (not counting the faint striations that extend through his caudal fin.
A couple of the bands split at the bottom and they don't wrap around the body. The bands on his body are vertical.
There are about 4 thinner black bands that run on his head that form into a v the point of which ends at his nose.
The striations on his body faintly extend about halfway through his dorsal and caudal fins. The tip of his caudal fin has a black spot.
His eyes seems rather large for his narrow, pointed head.
The coloring on his fins is translucent gold/tan.

[Martin Thoene]

Hi Suzanne and welcome to LOL.

Because of your excellent description, I'm thinking possibly a Sinibotia species. Check out the Species Index here:

http://www.loaches.com/species-index

Look at Sinibotia pulchra for starters:

http://www.loaches.com/species-index

If you click on the photo search at the bottom of the profile you'll get more pictures. Finding an exact match may be difficult, as the markings on some species may vary quite a bit.

Martin.

[Suzanne]

Thanks for helping. I also think it's a sinibotia of sorts. The closest picture I've found is of the robusta.

The difference with mine and the picture of the robusta is mine has a single black dot at the top of the dorsal fin. The robusta has a band of black running down the back curve of the dorsal fin.

I'm going to attempt again today to get his photograph.

Thanks again.

[YellowFinned]

That's impressive, Martin, can you identify all the loaches from a short description?

[Martin Thoene]

No Yellowfinned..........only if the description is good.
That's why I congratulated Suzanne on her's. All too often people come on here and write something like, "I bought a fish the shop said was a loach, it has 6 stripes. What is it?"

We've had people post stuff like that and after exhaustive questioning it turns out the fish isn't even a true loach.

Martin.

[helen nightingale]

Martin is being modest about how much he knows though. if you give a good description, he probably could do