Breathtaking balteata

[Emma Turner]

I had a lovely surprise last night when I opened up a fish box from one of my suppliers, and found a bag full of gorgeous Schistura balteata. I haven't seen these for a few years, and they came in with the very dubious common name of 'Tri Banded Orange Sumo Loach'! Here's some pics of them in the bag, more will follow in a few days time, once they have settled in:











(Apologies for the quality of the pics, but they were taken in what was pretty much total darkness).

Just look at some of those markings and colours - beautiful or what?!

Emma

[Mad Duff]

They are stunning fish Emma, I think I might just have found something for my empty 3' tank

[Emma Turner]

Heheh! You'll have to have to fight Graeme for some of them! I have two in my river tank (introduced about 3 years ago) which are doing great. Although they are a rather territorial species and my 'two' used to actually be 'eight'....

Emma

[mikev]

Thank you very much for posting these pictures -- Beautiful indeed.

(Frank has them listed for Sunday, and this obviously arose my curiosity).

Any idea of just how territorial/aggressive they are?

PS. Oops. looks like you just answered this. Still, a few more words would be very helpful: what do they need? - a 30g tank for two with no other brookstreams?

[Emma Turner]

My river tank is 3ft long x 15" wide - I wouldn't suggest anything less than that, as they can really zip about when they want to. They are perfectly peaceful with the Sewellia lineolata and the Spotties, and they used to live with Sinibotia pulchra too (until we had a disaster with their tank). As you know, up until recently, we had a big shoal of Danio 'hikari' in there and they never bothered them either. It seems that they only have a problem with others of their own kind. Bear in mind that the markings dull down with age, mine are almost a solid purpley-grey colour now. If I had a bigger tank for them, I'd be bringing some home, but as it is, I can't chance them with the two I've had for so long as they obviously now see the whole tank as their territory.

Emma

[Mark in Vancouver]

Nice ones, Emma!

[Martin Thoene]

Fab-U-Lusssssss! These are the rather wonderful red-stripe variety which I mentioned in a slight revision of the species profile.

Obviously, increased quality photographic representations of these cuties will be expected by the assembled throng

Martin.

[mikev]

Thanks, Emma,

My wife was deeply impressed by the pictures from your home tank (on the Baby Sewellia original thread), so I kind of promised to try to get them one day..

Do you have any idea how they would relate to other schisturas?
Just to confirm: a 29g (this is 2.5') in not good enough?

I'm in somewhat similar situation: unless I have another tank, I'll have Chenis, Hikaris, and Poculis sharing a tank, and this is probably a stopper for any breeding hopes. (Poculis are 2", non-territorial, but still schisturas). So the plan was to kick out Danios and Schisturas into a new (and the last ever) tank...probably put a few Gastros there as well. If balteata's can tolerate another Schistura species, this may look quite good.

[Emma Turner]

Thanks all! Martin, I said to Graeme yesterday evening that I thought these looked a bit like the Schistura sp. aff balteata that we saw over on petfrd a while back.

mikev - unfortunately, I have no experience in keeping S. balteata with other Schistura species. I think Graeme might have/had some of these in the past, so he might have more insight? My gut feeling is that they would probably not tolerate other Schistura species in a relatively small space, but I could be wrong.
I think a 2.5ft tank would be pushing it a little, as although they stay hidden a lot of the time, they do have their 'mad moments' and nip about all over the tank, making full use of the length.

Emma

[mikev]

Thanks, Emma,

Incidentally, they are listed as Schistura sp. aff balteata on Frank's list.

[Martin Thoene]

According to plateen at petfrd.com, these are from Thaninthayi, Myanmar.

http://www.ourweb.info/01/maps/myanmar/state-1.shtml

Seems quite distinct from the normal half and half fish with two black bands.

Martin.

[The.Dark.One]

Could these be paucifasciata or cincticauda rather than balteata?

[Emma Turner]

My supplier (which is the one that I thought Frank also used?) has had them listed 2 weeks running now as 'Tri Banded Orange Sumo Loach - Schistora species' (note the suppliers spelling mistake of Schistura). They made no mention of them being S. balteata, hence my excitement when I saw them. Of course they may well be another similar species.

Emma

[Martin Thoene]

Sounds more like paucifasciata to me, but no mention of these orange stripes which look pretty distinctive.

http://filaman.ifm-geomar.de/Summary/Sp ... p?id=55551

Martin.

[The.Dark.One]

the holotype of cincticauda was from Dawna Hills and Tenasserim, Lower Burma. The holotype was lost so Kottelat designated a neotype, but from Thailand.

Day describes the colour of cincticauda from Burma as:
yellowish, with ten regualr brown zones encircling the body, and sometimes but not always broader than the ground colour, or the bands may be broken up and irregular; a dark bar at the base of of the caudal, and a dark band between the eye and the snout; occasionally a dark mark at the opercle. Dorsal with some black spots.

paucifasciata was described from Burma, and was described as:
(when preserved) body brownish, 8 broad, gray bands in young, with growth bands gade away and the adult is characterised by 3 or 4 narrow vertical bars of deep reddish brown colour in the middle of the body.

the original description of balteata shows no bar at the caudal peduncle.

Based on all the above, my guess is cincticauda.