I have some interesting stuff for all you
Sewellia fans!
I managed to contact my Vietnamese supplier (Saigon Aquarium) and ask some questions regarding the
Sewellia lineolata that I have been importing from them. I had a very helpful reply from a chap there called Miroslav Farkac, who also sent me some lovely photographs of their natural habitat.
Firstly, he believes that the 'oddball'
Sewellia that I posted a picture of at the beginning of this thread is actually a
Beaufortia species, perhaps
Beaufortia lejeni. I have not heard of this species, but it would seem their range overlaps with the
S. lineolata. When/if my fish decides to rest on the front glass, I will try and take some photographs of it's underside so that we can compare it with the underside of
S. lineolata.
Now onto the photographs! Miroslav has very kindly given me permission to post these here so that everyone on Loaches Online can see them. I think this may be the first time that we have seen pictures of where these fish come from.
First up are a series of pictures showing the natural habitat where these beautiful fish are collected from.....
Here are a couple of underwater shots of the
Sewellia in their native waters:
And these show some freshly caught
Sewellia:
Miroslav also wrote an article on
Sewellia lineolata for the Czech magazine 'Aquarium Live.' He translated some of the interesting habitat information that was in this article into English for us:
"The fish live in China and Cambodia, but mainly in Vietnam. It is very attractive, but rather rare fish, which lives in small streams with large and deep pools covered by submerged plants. It can overcome high gradient stream (even 1m/sec) and also waterfalls. Sewellia moves between the pools and feeds by benthic inverebrates and algae. It is active during days searching in horizontal and vertical surfaces of stones for invertebrates. Resiliance is high, minimum population doubling time is less than 15 months and it is not protected. It is absolutely harmless fish, you can hold it among Discus without any danger. It is not very senzitive on transport, it is without problems. It is necessary to have roots and sand in aquariums with Sewellia, please, don’t catch it by hands – the fish can die. You can feed them by frozen fodder, by moskito larves etc.."
I did try and ask for names of the location/s (rivers, provinces etc) that they are collecting the Sewellia from, but I did not get an answer to that one. Not sure if it was lost in translation, or whether they just decided not to answer!
I hope everyone enjoys looking through this. A big thank you goes to Miroslav Farkac and all at Saigon Aquarium, Vietnam.
Emma
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
