... these eyes ... ;-)

[wasserscheu]

Very sorry about the dirty picture, but I still wanted to share my excitement about those small eyes of my Pangio oblonga, being moveable that much… I find that great… I really do…



P.S.: I´m so glad you are here ... there is nobody else, I could tell such things

[Asmodeus]

Aww.
Pangio oblonga is another term for "Weather Loach", correct?
They are definetely my favourite types of Loach. So very cute and interactive.
Nice picture.

[Martin Thoene]

Nope Asmodeus, the Weather loach is Misgurnus anguillicaudatus

Martin.

[Asmodeus]

Ahh...
My mistake.
They look quite similar.

[starsplitter7]

Aww.
Pangio oblonga is another term for "Weather Loach", correct?
They are definetely my favourite types of Loach. So very cute and interactive. Nice picture.

I am a beginner, and many beginners call the Pangios oblonga, Kuhli Loaches (although the striped ones are actually the Kuhlies). The P. oblonga are the black ones. Mine don't care if they are P. oblonga or P. Kuhlii, they like to hang together. They sleep together, and they dance together.

There are quite a few of us obsessed with our Weather a.k.a. Dojo Loaches. Mine are definitely the cutest of my loaches.

Tanja.

[Asmodeus]

Thanks for the information, Tanja.
So far, I really only know about Weather Loaches as they are the only type I have had the pleasure of keeping so far. My three little dust mops (their barbels make them appear as dust mops =) can brighten up my day the second I look at them. Their cute little tricks and playful antics never fail to make me smile. Although I'm still trying to get over the loss of my fourth little buddy. (Passed away this morning.)

[starsplitter7]

I am so sorry about your Dojo. I know how hard it is to lose them. They are so cute and have so much personality. I lost 5 about 3 weeks ago. I was trying to rehab them. I knew they weren't in the best of shape when I got them. But I wanted to try.

I lost my Elephant nose on Saturday and I am crushed, even though I had him only about 2 months.

I always think my dojos look like puppies with their eyes and those cute barbels, and they eat from my fingers. I adore them. I smile everytime I see them, and I put their picture on my computer desktop so I can always see them. One of them hanging out of a log looking at me, and another is draped across a plant.

Tanja

[Asmodeus]

Thank you, I'm glad there are people like you who can actually understand my loss... People who don't actually KNOW a Dojo Loach in person just can't understand how special, unique and friendly they are. I could sit in front of my aquarium for hours upon hours (literally) and never become bored by all of thier antics. They love attention, too. They swim right up to the side of the glass and tilt thier eyes as if to say hello... and then dash up to the surface and back down again, or play around in the bubble wand...

I too had rescued this one particular Loach from a tank in the petstore which was rather... 'unkept', thinking I could give him a nice new home where he would be healthy and happy. Needless to say, don't think I'll be purchasing any more out of 'sick' tanks again...

My avatar picture is my Loach who just passed. I managed to get a few good shots of him, thankfully.

I'm sorry to hear about your losses as well. Elephant Noses... are they easy to keep? I've been looking into some...

Alyssa[/i]

[Asmodeus]

I'm not too sure how that half italic got placed at the end of my last post but...

[Mark in Vancouver]

Sorry about the loss, Alyssa.

I don't know if this helps, but... Kuhli loaches were first written about in 1846 and are all of the genus Pangio. We like this because they used to be called Acanthophthalmus - a rather cumbersome bit of Latin. It gets confusing because the first known Pangio was dubbed P. kuhlii - and then Kuhli became the tidy way of describing the fish that followed. Now there are at least 32 known species of these "eel loaches," but no doubt we will see more discovered sometime soon. I see that even the LOL index only lists 16 known kuhlies, and some of those could actually be misidentified.

Countless books stupidly refer to these loaches as "Coolie Loaches."

All kuhli loaches are much smaller than the Dojos, or weather loaches.

[Munkee]

Countless books stupidly refer to these loaches as "Coolie Loaches."

Sadly it is not just books or fishkeeping magazines that call them "Coolie Loaches" many local fish shops around here also lable them that way.