could'nt resist some more of the N. ornatus

[mickthefish]

i went up to my mate Neil and Adele's for a natter today And to look at the fish on offer to us lowly punters, one of my wants was a male S berdmori to go with my female unfortunately the only one he had though beautiful was another female, just my look, if it had been the Duff man it would have been a male. haha
anyway to get to the point, i went in the back room and i saw a quick movement in one of the top tanks and went aye aye wots my mate hiding from me.
it was a N ornatus then another two appered from nowhere so i got my bag and net and of i went to go fishing, i caught the 3 and bugger me another two come into view so they went in the bags as well.
i already have 6 in my tank but vowed if i saw any more i'd be snagging them to make a nice shoal of them.
so here's the pics before they went in the q tank.






mick

[Graeme Robson]

Indeed a great capture!!

Breed them mate cuz you wont see many for a long time... (oh and i wants some)

[mickthefish]

i'm trying to figure out how to set the tank up to do them bud, i just need to build an internal tank with a mesh bottom strong enough to hold a layer of medium pebbles. i have a couple of 18 inch tanks waiting to have a go matey.

mick

[Graeme Robson]

Think streamline... these chaps are more elongated than Acanthocobitis zonalternans...fast colder spring waters... and hopefully new tank syndrome.

Oh i wish!

[Emma Turner]

Very nice, Mick!

[wasserscheu]

Pretty fish, very nice to have a shoal of

[mickthefish]

i still should have bought more when they first come in, but i did'nt think that many was in the tank and wanted to leave some for Ashleigh.
it turned out there were 50 pieces in the tank.
I know Ash got around 16 of them, but now i'm up tp 11 fish to make a nice little shoal.
has anyone heard how Thomas is doing breeding his?.

mick

[Nonn]

Nice loach, one of my favorite. Now if I know that you can pick up fish from Neil's, there can be many more interesting thing go your way.

[Thomas]

Hi Mick,

I have a small (30cm) tank for my pair, with pebbles on the ground.

It looks so:


Currently nothing is happen, but in the last time the water was such cold, sometimes lesser than 20°C. The tank has a place where it could stay a long time, if necessary the whole rest of the year I want small ornatus!

The female is still fat but I think through the cold water the fishes don't do very much. I will heat up the water, and hope that the loaches react this with more activity.

Wish you luck Mick!

Thomas

[mickthefish]

well Thomas, your setup looks fine to me, can't understand why they haven't spawned for you.
but here's a bit of info that might be a trigger, my mate was out in Thailand on some catching trips with Kamphol, Hans Evers and not to leave him out our Nonn.
all the loaches being caught, the females were all roe'd up ready to spawn.
so my idea would be the same setup as yours raise the temprature a few degrees higher than normal and reduce the water line for a couple of weeks then to imitate the rainy season pipe colder water back to the normal water level at the same time adding foods such as daphnia and bloodworm.
hows that sound to you Thomas.?

mick

[Thomas]

Let us try it. This afternoon I go and buy a small heater.

I have this setup from here: http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?t=15928

In a german magazin (Aquaristik Fachmagazin) Gerhard Ott (Schmerlenotto) wrote about this. The females stayed fat, also after he found some juvenil loaches. In another thread you told me the same for Acanthocobitis females, right?

[mickthefish]

yes, the female had layed over a 100 eggs yet she did'nt look any slimmer.
hope this works mate.

mick

[Nonn]

Did the guys told you that when we went to catch the S. balteata the stream was already full of young fry?

In my opinion, for all these small fish living in fast stream, the best time for spawning would be the peak of dry season and that would be during this time of the year or a little bit earlier. This is the time of the year when I can find a lot of young Schistura, Devario, Danio and Nemacheilus etc. all those small fish living in the stream. Breeding during this time of the year should be good, for the fry won't get washed away and they would grow enough to take care of themselve when the water come during the rainny season.

So...in my humble opinion, the stimulus for these loaches should be lower water level, slower current, and higher temperature.

[mickthefish]

thanks nonn, thats more or less the idea i had for a setup.
nonn, you said the ornatus was one of your favourites , could you tell us what the bed of the river/stream was like please. eg sandy base or gravel on larger rocks.?

mick

[wasserscheu]

Nonn, for us here, far away from loach paradise, it is amazing to hear about the natural habitat, thank you so much for linking the real animal world to what we have in our tanks.
One of the good thinks about the internet, bringing continents together. Thank you