Pangio shelfordii? *** new pics/vids added 16/08/07 ***

[Martin Thoene]

I tell you what, if I was there on Friday I would be buying a dozen!

Martin.

[Graeme Robson]

Yeah Martin! Thats the least amount we wants! These will look wonderful in a large group.

[Martin Thoene]

I'm wanting a whole wack of kuhlis to go in the 36" planted tank in my lounge.



I just want some small pretty fish in there. Currently 10 Cherry barbs and the lone unusual Yoyo that I got the other day. He will go in with the other Botia in the 6 footer once I know he's ok.

Martin.

[Graeme Robson]

Just waiting for something special to come along eh!

A larger than large group would look amazing in there! A good group of cherry barbs would most defiantly top it off!

[Emma Turner]

From what I remember, we received quite a large bagful of these, so there shouldn't be too many arguments!

I wish I had a spare tank at home for these myself....

[bslindgren]

I just checked for pictures on the web, and found these
http://www.elacuarista.com/atlas/P/pangio_shelfordi.htm;

http://www.israquarium.co.il/Fish/FishI ... ordii.html

and this article

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/tra ... Loach.html
with a picture of what is supposedly P. shelfordii

No guarantees that these are correct, of course, but I thought it would be of interest, perhaps.

[Graeme Robson]

From what I remember, we received quite a large bagful of these, so there shouldn't be too many arguments!

*phew*

[Martin Thoene]

I just checked for pictures on the web, and found these
http://www.elacuarista.com/atlas/P/pangio_shelfordi.htm;

http://www.israquarium.co.il/Fish/FishI ... ordii.html

and this article

http://www.aquarticles.com/articles/tra ... Loach.html
with a picture of what is supposedly P. shelfordii

No guarantees that these are correct, of course, but I thought it would be of interest, perhaps.

You will note that the first two links are the same picture reversed.
Pangio shelfordi is an incredibly varied fish depending on location.
The third link is an article by "Jungle" Mike Lo. Here's a page from his awesome website which shows just how variable this species is.

http://www.geocities.com/rasbora2004/loach.html

Martin.

[Emma Turner]

Yeah, variable is the word. A few years back I received some plain coloured greeny/purpley kuhlies which (if I remember correctly) HH identified as P. shelfordii Thai variant. They had no mottled markeings whatsoever.

Emma

[Emma Turner]

As promised here are a few more pics. Please forgive the water marks etc, but I don't have time to carry out any little edits today.

There are actually over 200 specimens in the tank, so I am including quite a number of pics I took to show differences in markings. Some photos are obviously better than others, but I thought I would show them all here to give a better overall feel for variations.

When I arrived at the shop yesterday evening, they were all going mad over some algae wafers that had actually been put in for the L-numbers prior to lights out. So they were all squirming about quite quickly and hence were tricky to capture on still photos. So at the end of the still shots, I've added 3 short video clips too.















































And the vids (please turn sound down to avoid camera refocus noise):

http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k183/ ... CN8375.flv

http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k183/ ... CN8376.flv

http://s88.photobucket.com/albums/k183/ ... CN8377.flv

Emma

[Mad Duff]

they are stunning, I cant wait to see them in the flesh tomorrow

[bslindgren]

Wow. Thanks for the information Martin and for the photos Emma. It's amazing to have such knowledge at ones finger tips!!

[Graeme Robson]

Teasing us with images of the Eirmotus octozona as-well eh?

Very very nice!!

[piggy4]

Firstly BRILLIANT pics and footage ! secondly , i've just been chatting to Loachmom , and been saying that dither fish are possibly best left out of Coolie tanks, in fairness those False Barbs dont seem to be affecting the equalibrium in the slightest, the Coolies are on the food, which is most important , so i guess sensible husbandry is the order here , False Barbs are slower moving than say Danio's , perhaps that is the answer ? sorry to gush, but those pics really whet the appetite !
b t w Emma what is that food on th vid's ?

[Martin Thoene]

piggy4, she said at the start of the post....Algae Wafers.

These are great pictures. The more I see the more I love these guys. Certainly, based on the original description you basically have fish that fit the number of saddles quoted and fish that don't. It does say that older fish get light areas within each saddle though and that would possibly account for the breaking up of the pattern into more saddles effectively, based on them only being short. They take on the appearance of more saddles.

I will use some of these pictures and add them to the species description.

They all look remarkably healthy and mostly nicely weighted.

Martin.