Loaches Online Forum

A leaky tank led to me buying a 4 foot, 300ltr tank (Juwel Rio 300). More on that in another thread, eventually. I was thinking I'd quite like to get one or more Crossocheilus siamensis but I'm finding conflicting information online. Some sites say only keep one as they fight with their own and other sites say they absolutely must be in a group to be happy and are very peaceful. I'm also aware that they get to 6" and as thick as a Cuban cigar, so I was wondering about the other species in the genus. In particular, C. atrilimes are reported to get to 70-75mm. Are they as good algae eaters? Or can someone suggest another species that would be best?

You might want to consider the Panda garra. They are very attractive and interesting to watch plus they are good algae eaters.

Get a group. They may hav little quarrels but in a large enough tank a group of 5 or more should be fine. They are fairly good algae eater but prefer the filament/tuft type algaes to others.
Panda Garras would also complement well with them.

Get a group of which, Doc?

Does this profile give a fairly accurate picture of pandas?

http://www.seriouslyfish.com/profile.ph ... tra&id=963

Also, I found this about Crossocheilus atrilimes:

http://thewebsiteofeverything.com/anima ... -atrilimes

Says they eat java moss rather than algae and also claims that there are no true C. siamensis in the hobby!

I really don't mind a bit of algae in the aquarium, it's just the black beard algae on Anubius leaves that annoys me. I really like Crossocheilus as fish, not just workmen in the tank but I'm just not sure if, say, five C. siamenses would be ok in my size of tank (4', 300ltrs/79US gallons).

I should probably list what's in there at the moment as I'd also like some advice on dither fish.

4x Botia almorhae
5x Botia striata
1x Mesonemacheilus guentheri
1x Parancistrus nudiventris
1x Parotocinclus maculicauda (Had two for a few years but recently lost one. Only ever seen them in a shop once )
10x Puntius titteya (cherry barbs)
11x Hasemania nana (silver tip tetras)

I was thinking a nice group of some sort of rasbora or barb. I'd really like it to be a tightly shoaling species though, much like the harlequins. (I have 7 harlequins but they've been moved to my girlfriend's tank and we didn't want to repeat species between the two tanks.) Any suggestions?

Hi Dave,

Pandas are great, me haves 8 and love them, 7 were better, the last addition was a bit dominant one. Now the Garre rufa outgrew them, but all in all very peacefully except the one domnant one pushs a little.

I had C. siamensis in my youth and I LOVED the group grasing in formation - no issues. Got a group for a friend of mine years ago and the group was peacefully and fine - no issues at all neither (300 liter). I had 3 juvenile ones, about 6 yearas ago, in my daughters small tank, and one was pushing the other 3 far too much - not acceptable and had to give them away, into a bigger tank.

Mine grased all the time.

Sorry I meant to say get a group of the Crossocheilus . Either C.langei or C.atrilimes (or any of the others for that matter.

How can you say no............

Hi paleodave there are no 'true' C. siamensis in the hobby because the species doesn't exist!

Basically there were some errors made around 25 years ago by a guy called Bănărescu who moved a fish he thought was Epalzeorhynchos siamensis Smith (1931) into Crossocheilus. Unfortunately while he was correct about the genus he misidentified his specimens and they turned out to be a new species later described by Kottelat (2000) as Crossocheilus atrilmes.

This means C. siamensis became a synonym of E. siamensis which is known only from a single specimen and definitely isn't a Crossocheilus. For some reason no-one in the aquarium hobby picked up on this until Josef Niederle's 2007 work: http://math.muni.cz/~niederle/tabulka.html

Because this mistake has been perpetuated for so long I guess exporters will continue to sell all these similar-looking Crossocheilus as C. siamensis for the foreseeable future.

Incidentally, I wrote that Garra article you linked to based on the experience of myself and others so hope it's accurate. We also cover the various Crossocheilus species sold as C. siamensis but unsure about the protocol of posting links here?

I think a lot of the problems associated with so called aggression are down to Garra Cambodgiensis which a lot of aquarium literature would picture as C.siamensis , though a chaser this fish isn't that bad really !

Another fine looking fish is Crossocheilus Reticulatus ,though it lacks the dark horizontal band , it more than makes up with its dark edged scales , and lemon yellow fins , a real beauty , my 8 are really placid really nice looking with great dispositions .

Andy if I ever have the money I'll buy you a camera and a training course on how to use it! Would love to see what swims in your tanks!

Ha ha you'd prbably be disapointed Matt

Mmm don't think so!

I think posting links here is ok...isn't it?

Thanks all for the information. At some point I'm thinking I'll get 5 'SAE' and perhaps some Rasbora vulcanus.

Here it is:

LOVE THAT WOOD!
beautiful tank, by the way!

beautiful tank, and I especially like the furry decoration on top