Loaches Online Forum

I dropped by at a local fs and found a nice surprise:



Half a dozen of these moved in.
Anyone have anything special to say about them?

Could anyone perhaps confirm the species?

Most likely homaloptera smithi. I bought some of these a few months ago. Told the distributor they were mislabeled but they kept it anyway.

I would agree that its H. smithi.
They are a very interesting species to keep. I feed mine frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. They don't pay much attention to prepared foods but will sometimes snap at passing flake foods. An undemanding species to keep. They do tend to be a bit reclusive.
Check out the species profile.
http://www.loaches.com/species-index/homaloptera-smithi

Thanks for your contribution on this, guys!

I I like them, they are different from any other hillsters I have kept.
They are totally different from my H. orthogoniatas, however. Which I find interesting, actually.

More to follow.

If you do want Balitora Burmanica, Wetspot in Portland has been shipping them for some months now. He's calling them, on his lis, "Butterfly butterfly loach loach." So that's what we call them around here. We got four of them in January, and they seem to be thriving in the river tank.

Thanks for the info. Portland is a bit far from where I'm staying, but it's comforting to hear they are around.

I sure would have preferred them to be Balitoras. I put the H. smithis in a tank with breeding colonies of Sewellia lineolatas and Sewellia sp. spotteds and just as it says in the Loaches Online caresheet, the Homalops are attacking baby Sewellias.

I probably have to take down about the whole tank to get the Homalopteras outta there.
Oh, well, life...

My "balitora burmanica" came from wetspot. They are h. smithi

hx wrote:I dropped by at a local fs and found a nice surprise:

Hello. This fish looks like?
http://loaches.ru/forum/index.php?PAGE_ ... ssage43622
http://loaches.ru/forum/index.php?PAGE_ ... ssage45481

How has the fish been so far in your tank? I have two of these and sometimes I get caught up just watching for half hours at a time. So glad for you that you found this great fish, hope you enjoy. What kind of filters do you have in your tank? I just got a new set of discount filters that have trwated me really well thus far. I can say with confidence this is my best tank ever.

plaalye wrote:They are h. smithi

Seems I may have jumped the gun here. There's been a lot of discussion about these and some very knowledgeable folks believe that they are h. tweedeii. It's very difficult to distiguish between the two.