Loaches Online Forum

These beauties came in from Indonesia last week, listed as Homaloptera stephensoni. I think they are H. zollingeri because of the overall black colouration and hyaline upper caudal lobe. What do you reckon?









This supplier previously sent H. smithii when I last ordered H. stephensoni from them, so they have misidentified fish in the past. In this case, I will be happy if everyone concurs with the H. zollingeri ID as they don't appear on lists very often (the last time I had them in was about 2 and a half years ago).

Emma

whatever they are, they look gorgeous. a good reason to get a hillstream tank going. drool drool drool!

H. zollingeri

Not a good reason to get a Hillstream tank going Helen....they hide.

Martin.

Martin said:

H. zollingeri

Not a good reason to get a Hillstream tank going Helen....they hide.

What he said.

all the time?

anyway, they are very beautifull. i am sure they will look nicely invisible in someone's tank.

Yes, Helen, they hide just about all the time.
The one I have had for about 5 years now is over three inches long and very impressive. About the only time I see him is when he sticks his head out from behind "his" rock and grabs bloodworms, or after lights out.
He did surprise me a week or so ago when I noticed him out in the light, feeding with the gastros.

they are very well camouflaged against the wood in Em's photos.

it must have been a really nice surprise to see yours, Jim. is he very protective over his rock? and were the gastro's worried by the unaccustomed company?

i love to see how well camouflaged some of these fish are. i never expected my striata to disapear so well when i got the dark sand. i hate these tanks with luminous colour decor so the fish cant blend in, or when a tank doesnt have much cover. maybe i am just weird

Despite certain weirdnesses Helen it's obvious that you have aesthetic sense I'm sure the fish appreciate it.

Ask LUVaLOACH about "seeing the light". I convinced her that the luminous gravel needed Xing. It didn't change her daughter's love of the fish on iota as I suspected, but Mom appreciated the more natural look.

Apologies to anyone who likes the colorful look. Such is the rich tapestry of human aesthetic I did recently buy an Hawaiian shirt after all

Martin.

Superb looking H. zollingeri

More nicey's to ponder on!!

Thanks all. Wish I had more room in my River Tank for some of these. Need more tanks, need more tanks......

Helen wrote:

it must have been a really nice surprise to see yours, Jim. is he very protective over his rock? and were the gastro's worried by the unaccustomed company?

Yes, its sort of a treat to get a good look at him without disturbing him.
He doesn't seem overly protective of his rock, but then he is so large, I don't think any fish in the tank would challenge him. He just hides on the back side of his piece of slate, waiting to be fed. One of the gastos controls the other side.
The gastros don't seem to mind him either. They are rather large ocellatus so they can hold their own.

I picked up 10 of these , and yes they do hide , but if you arrange the rocks, wood etc, you can view them quite a lot ! i really like this fish a lot !

Wow those are some stunning H. zollingeri! Excellent photos, I wish the shops here stocked fish like this. I truly wish you were not across the pond, or I'd be shopping with you all the time.

I was in a (totally rubbish) petshop the other day and they had identical looking ones. Quite nice and healthy looking too. If I didn't know their habits I might have bought some.

Martin.

Just owning them and seeing what we see is a buzz in it's self.