Loaches Online Forum

These beauties came in last week listed as Acanthocobitis urophthalmus:



























They faded a little on being put into the photo tank, but as you can see the markings still look pretty amazing. Does everyone agree with the ID? Fishbase lists the maximum size for A. urophthalmus as 4cm TL, these are 6-7cm TL.

Emma

Send some of those beauties over to the usa, we never get variety here.

clownloachfan wrote:Send some of those beauties over to the usa, we never get variety here.

Me too.

Once a loachaholic, always a loachaholic.

Superb!

They look like Acanthocobitis urophthalmus although a bit on the large side. Perhaps FishBase is just using the odd small specimen for their references.

Stunning fish Emma

Going by the fact that some of them have a lot of red in their fins and the fact that they are quite a bit bigger than the accepted size for Acanthocobitis urophthalmus could they be Acanthocobitis rubidipinnis

Nice fish and photo's Emma. Where were they caught?

The full name is now Acanthocobitis (Paracanthocobitis) uruphthalmus!

clownloachfan wrote:Send some of those beauties over to the usa, we never get variety here.

It's true!!! I've been sitting here eating my heart out with all these beautiful photos.. I have never seen these loaches here.

My LFS has these on order for next week so they should be in Toronto soon. For anyone not a million miles from New York look at Franks Aquarium website as I bet he'll get them in soon and he ships.

Funnily enough, I saw a bunch of really nice fish labelled as Zipper Loaches a few moths back at my local Big Als that looked identical to Emma's pictures. They had the same redness in the fins.

Martin.

Thanks all.

The.Dark.One wrote:Nice fish and photo's Emma. Where were they caught?

Unfortunately, I'm unlikely to be able to find out with these. They came from a different supplier (in Singapore) who doesn't tend to give much away. They just suddenly appeared on their specials list last week. They always have A. botia listed as a permanently stocked species under the Zipper nametag, but these were a new addition to the weekly specials list and are not going to be a permanent addition.

Emma

Hey moonpye, want to go protest and demand that the fish stores around here start getting a wider variety of loaches in?

Gorgeous fish, Emma.

clownloachfan wrote:Hey moonpye, want to go protest and demand that the fish stores around here start getting a wider variety of loaches in?

And it'll be great if Singapore ships on its neighboring countries..

They do match the pictures in Pethiyagoda's Freshwater Fishes of Sri Lanka (where urophthalmus is described from). Also, there are three populations there, one of them having red fins (Kalu River system). Very nice fish and one to keep hold of I would say.

The size of 4cm is taken from Pethiyagoda's book, and in turn was probably came from the original description, which was only based on 2 specimens.

clownloachfan wrote:Hey moonpye, want to go protest and demand that the fish stores around here start getting a wider variety of loaches in?

Yeh, hee hee. Too bad I won't have the time for a protest for a while.. maybe when the baby is a few months old.. I already made a deal with hubby no more fish till after baby settles in. Ah, ha ha ha ha! (Yah, ok, I'll try...)

Thank you T.D.O.

Graeme has promised to do a profile on this species when he gets a free moment.

(hint hint )