what is this loach?

[The-Wolf]

I have had this for ages and thought it was a B.hymenophysa but when showing the picture to a friend they say it is either a B. berdmorei or B. beauforti. every pic I look at for comparrison is not the same as mine
(wrong colour of bands, too many spots etc)
so what exactly do I have?

[mamaschild]

It's definately one of those two....I went through the same thing trying to ID mine. I was told I had Beauforti?

[Martin Thoene]

It's Syncrossus berdmorei. S. beauforti lose their stripes as they get older, becoming a rather bland brownish fish with spots.

How big is this one now?

How do you find them behaviour wize?

Martin.

[The-Wolf]

this loach is approaching 5"

behaviour wise he is ok
as he shares an 82 USg tank with 3x B.helodes, 6x B.almorhae, 2x B.modesta, 4x B.Angelicus, 4x B.macracanthus, 5x B.striata, 2x Schistura mahnerti.

with a Polypterus palmas palmas(who keps everyone in check) and 3x Erpetoichthys calabaricus thrown in for good measure.

thanks for the posative ID

[Graeme Robson]

The-Wolf. I see in your "sig" that you have a question mark after your named Acantopsis octoactinotos. You got a picture?

[JonGuerriero]

How about this guy...We've had him for a couple of weeks. He's about 2.5 - 3 inches and pretty skinny but we're fattening him up with blodd worms and mosquito larve.

[shari]

Most likely Botia helodes:

http://www.loaches.com/species_pages/botia_helodes.html

Fairly agressive species, and yours is definitely on the skinny side Hopefully he/she will fatten up in short order.

[Mike Ophir]

Yea I would say B. helodes, although I must warn you that it is very difficult to tell when specimens, such as the one in your photograph are so young and small. As they mature, body patterning tends to change. If it doesnt, you know for sure its B. helodes.

Mike

[The-Wolf]

The-Wolf. I see in your "sig" that you have a question mark after your named Acantopsis octoactinotos. You got a picture?

only these two

[Martin Thoene]

Yea I would say B. helodes, although I must warn you that it is very difficult to tell when specimens, such as the one in your photograph are so young and small. As they mature, body patterning tends to change. If it doesnt, you know for sure its B. helodes.

Mike

The vertical orientation of the oval belly spots indicates S. helodes though Mike.

Martin.

[JonGuerriero]

Yea I would say B. helodes, although I must warn you that it is very difficult to tell when specimens, such as the one in your photograph are so young and small. As they mature, body patterning tends to change. If it doesnt, you know for sure its B. helodes.

Mike

The vertical orientation of the oval belly spots indicates S. helodes though Mike.

Martin.

It will be interesting to see what happens as he grows. I will post more pictures as he develops.
What I can say is that I put him in a 40 gallon long with 3 skunk loaches, a pretty good size rainbow shark and some assorted dither fish and he took the tank over in record time!!

[piggy4]

I'd say the pics by Wolf depict , S.Berdmorei [colour varient] and the pic by Mamas child is a S.Beauforti, not to sure if i agree with Martin about Beauforti loosing colour with age ,iv'e kept them up to about 200mm's and they have still displayed nice colour's , these Berdmorei are probarbly a brighter fish ! but Beauforti is quite pleasing , the base colour being a greyish purple , a good way of telling Beauforti apart from other Syncrossus is the dark lines , that run from the tip of the snout through the eye and towards the dorsal fin unbroken, in Berdmorei they seem to break up between the eye and the dorsal ! one thing about Beauforti i did notice is that whilst doing the loachy dance they have a lovely red body flush , quite stunning !