Just arrived tonight (sorry for poor quality pics, these were taken very quickly in the semi-darkness) :
Somehow I managed to negotiate a deal to bring some home with me (heheh!) and so I have a scoopful of them in the 3ft tank that used to be my river tank and which I was planning on setting up for the baby weather loaches. But needs must and once I knew these were on their way, I set the tank up with black sand, lots of bogwood, almond leaves, plants (which I haven't actually planted yet, they are just floating around at present) and used mature water and an Eheim cannister taken off of the clown loach tank (have replaced that with a new one).
I am hoping that once these are settled in there will be no way back and then I can argue a case for another tank for the weathers.
3ft was never going to be large enough for them long term anyway!Here are a couple more pics taken in what was an even lower light situation at home:
It was a case of trying to focus on the tank trim (silver) and then moving the camera upwards to where I thought the loaches were - hence the missing tail etc. Apologies for water marks too.
These were actually collected from central Borneo, so the supplier tentatively calls them Vaillantella cf. maassi. He reckons that all previous exports of V. maassi came from Sumatra. These look the same to me, but better pics in a few days should tell us for sure. This is a species that has never been before collected in such quantity. All look to be active and healthy.
Emma
!
. My 3ft tank already has a lot of bogwood and copious amounts of plants & almond leaves, it is just that I haven't positioned everything properly just yet. The loaches seem to be enjoying themselves and are either lazing about in the plants or actually making full use of the height of this tank, doing the loachy dance with each other at times. 