Loaches Online Forum

When I was picking fish at the store I thought these two were the same kind of fish.



Here's a pic where you can see the blue tail. It doesn't look it in this shot, but it's blue like the cteno's tail/dorsal...



And a lousy pic (I AM sorry... ) of the dorsal raised. It is a bit frayed but looks to be clear to me.




this identifying of hillstreams is very confusing. Glad that 3 (or maybe 4) of mine are easy!
And a couple more:

Are you using the closeup setting on your camera?

I use the Macro setting and take my pics on atleast a 20 degree angle to the glass and use about 70mm lens zoon (so zoom about half way, then adjust your distance accordingly)

I also find it easier to focus on a contrasting rock or log, then photograph the fish I want. Cameras focus by distance not object. Just make sure when you take your focus that it is in the same light as what you want to photograph as some cheapo (like mine) cameras auto color temperature adjust...


You can get quasi decent shots like this even with a garbage $80 2Mpixel crapera like I have


These are the awful pictures I get if I don't set up my shots right... Same camera...

Yeah. I get plenty of the awful kind...

Meanwhile, I think I've figured out that I have 3 occellatus, 1 cteno, 1 stellatus and I'm not so sure that the one with the tiny spots is actually stellatus...

I tell you what...these pics are far better than I was anticipating based on your initial promises. Having seen that BN pic, I thought you could do better. These aren't half bad.

It's difficult to say exactly what the fish is. I would still like to see bigger pics of it. The relationship of it to the G. stellatus that you clearly have there, is rather like that of my stellatus to a fish I have. Similar, but much finer markings.

Except your's has far more spotting than mine.

As we're discovering that there's more and more species IDing them can only get more difficult

Martin.

Well, you KNOW I'm gonna keep trying.
The thing is that the tails on the two are different as well. The stellatus has some blue in the middle but also dark blotches/almost stripes and some red in the right light. He also has some color in the dorsal.

the small spottie has no apparent color in the dorsal and no black in the caudal execpt it's 'darker' above and below the blue. He also has a higher arch to his body and a stumpier face with a more square lip line. And very small gills. Smaller than the eyes even, I think.

Reading over at Petfrd I saw something about P. peristictus, but couldn't find any pictures anywhere.

Eventually I should get lucky with at least one pic one day...

This is very interesting. The light colored one, looks just like one I have that I have been calling a stellatus. It will darken up somewhat when it gets on darker surfaces. The other one I have in a different tank, is much smaller and is dark most of the time. Both have the clear dorsal, fine spots and band of blue down the middle of the caudal fin. The darker one of yours with larger spots looks almost like Martin's zebrinus to me.
Now this makes me wonder if this species has some wide color variation just as some of the other species in Dr. Tan's book. According to him there is quite a bit of variation in the REAL punctalatus, lepidogaster, and psiloetron.

I'm pretty sure that the one with the larger spots is a stellatus based on info from you guys (thanks Jim and Martin ), but the other guy just doesn't seem to fit quite right. He's the one who's the chameleon.

To me, he looks more like what I have thought was ridens but now know to be stellatus than does the other fish. Let me send you a pic from Dr. Tan's book and see what you think.

It also might be good to post the pics on petfrd.
If they are indeed two different species, I have only had four of the fine spotted variety and would love to know for sure what they are.

Yours....



Mine....



G. zebrinus.....



The similar one.....

....but it behaves very differently, the nose looks different and it has a deep depression along the lateral line area posterior of the dorsal. Dorsal colorless.

And sometimes it goes very weird colors.....



Here's a zebrinus nose.....



And stellatus nose.......



Aspirin?

Martin.

Boy I do have a headache now.
Let's see:
Martin's stellatus is intermediate of shari's light guy and the darker guy.
Shari's dark guy looks to be intermediate to Martin's stellatus and his zebrinus.

Hmmm...maybe there is something going on in that ridens group of gastros, that we don't know about.

One thing that jumps out at me every time I look at my stellatus is the pattern of markings. Note that there's an elongated spot/stripe thing that drapes over the back, just in front of the dorsal. There's also a shorter one behind the dorsal. Both mine and Shari's fish have it, plus I've seen it in others of the species.



Martin.

Hmmm. I'll have to check mine out for that bar. I don't recall seeing it on them, but I'll check again.

Just checked both of mine. Neither has the bar.

That's Ok. Shari and I won't hold it against you

Martin.