Loaches Online Forum

Hello everyone,

Lately I bought 12 stiphodons to keep my other 4 stiphodons company. After a while now, I noticed there is one fish not like the others. I have searched the internet but I have no idea wich fish this could be. So my question is, do you have an idea?

It looks to be the sp. dubbed "orange fin" by odyssey. I think we have determined that it's an undescribed sp. from Indonesia. I have one too that was mixed with "rainbow" sp. Mine is very reclusive.

Great fish I have 4 of those. There spots on head and neck make them easy to differentiate from other kinds. One of mine 3 has a rounded 1st dorsal, the others a backwards pointed one.
I assume you've visited odyssey's thread, who puts them into the "orange fin" group. Enjoy

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... c&start=15

Yes, I noticed him being different by the spots on his head. So this is just a stiphodon sp., a undiscribed specie. That's nice to know just a bit dissapointing that there is not much known about them. And that's it will be hard to find more of his specie to keep him company, because it's a little sad him being around all these other stiphodons but no one of his kind.

Are these fish that are breed often or are these all caught in the wild?

I have seen odyssey's topic, and now I recognize the fish I have .

By the way, this fish was bought with these guys. These are another stiphodon sp. if i'm not mistaken.

As far as I know stiphodon have not been bred in aquaria, all wild caught. They are amphidromous, which means that their larvae drift downstream after hatching and develop for a period of time in salt water. A difficult set of conditons to reproduce.
That is another stiphodon sp. we've been calling "rainbow" . There seem to be several variations of these if not seperate species???? My orange fin came with fish that look like yours, they must co-habitate. Keep your eyes open for more contaminants, also for females of the species. I've found them labeled s. ornatus.

It'd be interesting to see a photo of that first fish with fins splayed for confirmation. The caudal patterning looks different to other specimens we've seen so far.

Here's a poor pic of mine Matt, looks similar to me from what I can see.

K cheers Jim. Aurora's fish appears to lack distal banding on the caudal fin (yours has it) but otherwise is identical so I guess you're right. *thumbs up*

Had to google distal? I don't see what you're looking at Matt, please explain

All the ones we've seen before have a thin stripe towards the oouter edge of thh upper caudal fin lobe but I don't see it here. Doesn't mean it's not the same species just thought it was interesting. Sorry about the geek-speak I'll try and cut down on it.

Matt wrote: Sorry about the geek-speak I'll try and cut down on it.

Don't do that Matt. We need to learn these terms! Thanks for the expaination.

I'll try to make a better photo. It's a very shy fish so it might take a while

This is my male Orangefin (ST01).





And I think this would be a female.




My Stiphodon "Orangefin" is also more shy than the Rainbow sp.

Here is another photo of him. I shot this photo yesterday. I hope this is a good enough shot.

Can someone help me decide if both my orange fins are males?

also, wouldn't they be territorial, or would they be friendly?