How to determine female/male Aborichthys elongatus?

[wasserscheu]

First off, greetings from Munich - weather is pure here, I´d not be surprised finding some Sewellia sucking on the window outside, as it keeps raining for days here...

however, I am glad to get the opportiunity in this forum asking for international help, how to determine female/male Aborichthys elongatus?

I thought I had a pair, but the slimmer one disappeared, and if I can find some in Germany (they seem to be very rare here) I´d like to create a couple...
Do they defend territory? Any hints about info how to keep them? scanned the net, but not easy to find...

They are doing great with others, except spitting some mouthful of sand at the clowns... and those in turn learned from here/him to pick up stones with the mouth (the clowns never did that before the Abr. elong. moved in!) The one left is 6,5cm, seem to feel good, was somwhat growing and getting thicker...

Thnks

Wolfram

[Emma Turner]

Hi Wolfram, and welcome to Loaches Online!

Male Aborichthys elongatus tend to have less markings on the front half of the body and they also have fine red concentric curved markings on the tail. The markings on the female's tails are not as fancy, but they do have markings all the way along the body.

Martin has some great pictures of his, so I'm sure he'll post some when he reads this.

Emma

[Martin Thoene]

Hi Wolfram,

Female.



Male looking a little worse for wear after a fight with another Male.

These fish are easy to care for and eat most foods avidly. They like current in their tank, coming from fast flowing streams. The males can be territorial one minuite, yet share a hole the next. They're OK with other fish. Their digging can be a problem in a decorative tank and you need to be careful of them undermining rocks that might fall over.

Martin.

[Graeme Robson]

Also look out for the males with 'wide' cheeks. They like to puff them up every now and then.

[wasserscheu]

Thanks! You guys are great. This forum is realy amazing...

I am trying to add the pic. of my fish...

http://www.loachtank.org//displayimage.php?pos=-4579




... hmmm... not getting there, can you see it I can=t...

... anyway, I try later again...

Emma, Graeme, Martin, could you possibly please take a quick look at my album and help with the girl/boy guess?
The tail fin has only 2, and more parallel than concentric curves, not so charactaristc like Martin shows (Thanks Martin for the effektive visualisation! SHE IS VEEEEERY ATTRACTIVE!) I think I saw him(?) puff his chek once...

Wolfram

[mikev]

This is how you link your image (look at the code with "quote"):

[Graeme Robson]

Hi Wolfram. At a guess. I would say Male.

Good luck on your search.

[wasserscheu]

Flowers for Emma




"... I buy you a German beer" - grin for the Gentlemen



Sorry Gentlemen for the small size ... don´t know why... MS editor shows them both at same ... what does that tell us?


(... that we never tell the real size of our beer? )

... shows pretty much the real size of the fish though.



trying to edit here... I know, things take time - behind the mountains ...



YES

[shari2]

What a nice shot. Love that happy face

[Emma Turner]

Thank you for the beautiful flower.