Loaches Online Forum

These 5 fish seem ultra happy in their tank. Very lively fish and definitely loving the proper River-Tank system they're in now, even though the Q-tank had loads of current.

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=743

Absolutely no heater in this system, yet.....



Anyhow....how happy do they look? This happy.....


First take X-Rays....

How come they grip rocks so well?



Preparing for take-off.......


These are definitely my favourite Hillstreams now. I just love their behaviour.

Martin.

Absolutely, beautiful!!!
Maybe some day...

Jim, check out the fin close-up I just added.

Martin.

WOW

Beautiful pics!

Your definatly right there Martin, i too have discovered that you cannot get too much Sewellia. I find myself spending more and more time upstairs watching them (to the disgust of my fiancee!), especially in the evening after feeding time when they are absolutly hyper-active. They are certainly a unique fish! I never noticed those friction type pads before either. What size are yours by the way? And also, did you find that for a while they would be a bit nervous and hide when you approched the tank? Mine were a bit, but they seem to be getting used to me a bit more now.

Looking good, Martin!
I can see this is a problem, I can't get enough of 'em either!

Emma

Absolutely superb!!

"Check out them claws"

great looking loach!!!!
those look like lake superior rocks?!?!

I think I'll be crying myself to sleep tonight, dreaming of the day that I find some of these gems.

Don't cry too hard. You have the M. triangularis...

The bad news is that having sold out of S. lineolata, I'm currently finding it very difficult to source these again at the moment. I have a feeling that lots of shops are now ordering them (having seen the glorious pictures on the web/ in magazines etc), and worse still, a lot of them probably do not know how to care for them properly. Last week I placed an order from my Vietnamese supplier who was offering them in 4 different sizes, and I missed out on them. Another supplier (European) had them listed, but was asking ridiculous amounts of money for them, which we could not justify at our end.
I just hope that huge numbers are not perishing.

Emma

Hmmm...Emma.

That reminds me of 3 certain species i keep. Fellow loach followers suggest that i don't promote them any further with me showing my pictures.


Graeme.

Hmmmm......so we're doing TOO good a job of promoting these fish?
Must stop this sort of stuff then....

Just took this before posting

Gary Herring wrote:Beautiful pics!

What size are yours by the way? And also, did you find that for a while they would be a bit nervous and hide when you approched the tank? Mine were a bit, but they seem to be getting used to me a bit more now.

Thanks for the pics comment Gary. Mine are around 1 3/4" to maybe a bit over 2" SL. 4 are the same size and one a bit bigger. They can still be a bit jumpy sometimes, but I know to approach the tank quietly if I want photos. Actually, I'm finding they are getting used to seeing the big silver box that flashes at them, and are lessening their tendency to run from it.


I suppose that we look at ourselves here as being the touchstone for all things loachy on the net, yet in reality we all know that our promotion of proper loach-keeping only appears to reach a small proportion of people. We do surely make a difference, but in the global trade of ornamental fish maybe it's only a small one. Still, we keep on plugging away and when The Book gets published the impact of it's content may reach a whole new sector of fishkeepers, and also increase the traffic here at LOL. It may also see an increase in demand for loaches. This can fuel increased imports to fulfil those desires, but the people pestering their local shops to order in unusual loaches will only be a small proportion of the people actually purchasing the fish that arrive. Therefore, only a small proportion of the fish will be cared for by correctly informed people. This is an unfortunate reality of the business of fish trading and may only ever get changed if suddenly all the uninformed shop owners and staff get responsible and educated on what they are selling.
The Emma Turners and Harold Slaters of this world are few and far between, unfortunately. It doesn't matter how well they care for the fish that arrive, they are still at the mercy of the supply chain and many factors can conspire to end up with a bag of dead fish when they open that shipping box .

Right...off to feed the Sewellia some Mysis shrimp.

Martin.

To be honest, I don't know. Certain calls for concern has be addressed to me personally from Asian folk. But target harvesting of stream fishes for export may not be a good thing since stream fishes, unlike floodplains and river fishes, may not be able to repopulated quickly in the current situations. In Western Thailand Tony T has seen large specimens of red-tail Schisturas virtually disappeared from some streams for quite a while after a boom in collecting in the area for just 1-2 years till major collecting in the area collapsed.

Just me and burning the midnight oil, thats all.

Emma Turner wrote:The bad news is that having sold out of S. lineolata, I'm currently finding it very difficult to source these again at the moment. I have a feeling that lots of shops are now ordering them (having seen the glorious pictures on the web/ in magazines etc), and worse still, a lot of them probably do not know how to care for them properly.

It looks like i made the journey just in time then - I think I must have bought the last 2!

This is something i feared would be inevitable: Sewellia becoming more commonly availible and suffering the same fate as other hillstream species, ie being dumped in with goldfish and sold by ill-informed dealers as 'coldwater algae eaters', often to kids goldfish bowls. This is the main problem IMO; that goldfish are commonly (and wrongly!) seen as expendable, 'easy', beginners fish that are suitable for bowls and unfiltered tanks, and just because hillstreams suit cooler temps, they have been put with goldfish and therefore condemed to the same fate.
I have lost count of the shops i have been to where i have heard the staff recommend hillstreams as algae eaters when selling goldfish. I think it would be a major step forward if we could just get these fish away from the 'coldwater' (ie goldfish) sections of the shops. I, for one, am going to distribute the recently produced factsheet as far as possible, and hopefully this will make a difference. Im not going to hold my breath, but its 'Better to try and to fail...........' etc,etc.