Loaches Online Forum

I am fairly certian this is Acantopsis choirorhynchus, but I wanted to run it past some expert eyes. Did I make the correct ID. This little guy belongs to a fella at another forum I belong to. I don't want to tell him the wrong thing.

A. choirorhynchus:



Acantopsis octoactinotos


Somileptes gongota



Not really sure, here.

Does it burrow? How long is it? Any idea how old?

He says it's small, very small say about 2 inches at max right now. He has not seen it burrow as of yet, he aquired it as a "hitcher" in a bag of fish he got two weeks ago.

He says he has been feeding with sinking pellets and offferend some bloodworms, he became very active with the worms. He told me the fish is out during the day, and takes off to hide at night, although if he is burrowing after the lights go out, nobody would notice.

That is my problem as well, shari, I was not sure if it was A. choirorhynchus or Acantopsis octoactinotos. I did not even consider Somileptes gongota, although he seems to look more like the other two.

I almost feel like we have to wait to see how he acts or grows up to tell.

I would say it is not Somileptes gongota (I ordered one the other week but it arrived dead due to what I think was dreadful packaging-the water was ice cold so never again. But anyway.... the body shape does not look that of Somileptes gongota

I would tend to go for Acantopsis choirorhynchus based on the position on the eyes, but then it looks quite young. maybe a closer picture could clear things up, although it might be a bit difficult to.


My Acantopsis choirorhynchus rarely burried until they reached 10-12cm in length, its got to the stage now that Im lucky to see a pair of eyes poking upout of the sand possible behaviour???

If you could try a closer pic, it might just clear things up slightly.

Ashleigh

Thanks for tanking a peek Ashleigh, I have sent an email to the owner of the fish. It's not my fish so hopefully he can get a good clear and close shot of the head and body. Once I get them, I'll update.

No probs
Ive had a look on google; theres very few pictures of Acantopsis octoactinotos and even so, I wouldn't trust them. I wanted to see if there was any difference in the markings but it didn't seem to be, and again this looks like a juv so its markings will prob change with age.
Could you try and get a pic of the mouth area? Apparently this can seperate Acantopsis octoactinotos from Acantopsis choirorhynchus. I swear I read something about Acantopsis octoactinotos eyes being slightly more 'upwards' based compared to Acantopsis choirorhynchus but now I can't find the source . Anyway I think head and mouth area shots might just be the way to go about this.

Ashleigh

they are not horsefaced loaches bud, ive got exactly the same fish
they are acanthopsoides molobrion, ive just taken a few shots of my two but haven't uploaded them will post before the days out for the experts to give the verdict.
as far as i can find out there is a population from borneo.

as to the other fish ?
loaches aren't my field but i'm a quick learner with my mates help.

mick

mickthefish wrote:they are not horsefaced loaches bud, ive got exactly the same fish
they are acanthopsoides molobrion, ive just taken a few shots of my two but haven't uploaded them will post before the days out for the experts to give the verdict.
as far as i can find out there is a population from borneo.

as to the other fish ?
loaches aren't my field but i'm a quick learner with my mates help.

mick

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur ... n%26sa%3DN


Do you mean this? On the website it is also classed as a 'horsefaced loach'. I guess right now it is trying to narrow down to a species but it is very difficult to correctly id a fish based on a blurry pic that does not show all characteristics.


Ashleigh

there's enough of them pics for me ashleigh. give us 10 minutes and my pics will be up for a comparison.
btw mine aren't blurry. haha

mick

here's 3 pics as a comparisonto the pics of this thread.
first pic is the male the second two are of the female, one of the pics turned out like an X-ray somehow it must have been the posiyion of my camera.






what do you peeps think, ive already decided personally

mick

That's very close to the horse-faced loach, but the markings are clearly different. Mick - where is the reference to A. molobrion? I hadn't heard of this before.

i found one reference to them on fishbase, and i also asked jungle mike from borneo as he'd posted a pic with the name as one of the fish he collected on one of his sorties.
somewhere on his site HEAVEN ON EARTH. he gives the location where he was collecting.

hope this answers your question mark.

mick

sorry i forgot to mention ive had these fish for about four years now , the pair are roughly 2 inch SL.

mick

The head and the caudal spot seem to match.
Little known species? I'd not heard of it before, either.

What fish was this a contaminant with?

Hmm seems mick might have done it. I am waiting for better photos to come to me tomorrow.

He said it hitched a ride from the fish store with a rubber lipped pleco he bought.