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During the week of 26th May onwards, Stewart Handley (Aqualife staff) noticed some "new" very small Loaches in a very busy tank. He then asked Steve if someone had brought a new batch in! Steve was equally surprised ("gob-smacked" is more appropriate!) to see that they were in fact young Loaches which had beaten incredible odds and survived in an extremely busy tank. How they avoided the ever greedy Platies as well as the other species (I'll let you play at "spot the other species"!), is really amazing. The only decor were two small pieces of bogwood which had Java Fern attached.  They are in fact a Riverine Loach, Acanthocobitis zonalternans and are widespread from Eastern India to Thailand, reaching around 2" in length. In the above photo, one of the adult Loaches can be seen, almost centre and resting on the gravel. Below is a close-up of an adult with one of its many tank mates. Males can be identified when they are in breeding condition as they show a lemon colouration on the fins, especially the dorsal fin. Hence, in some articles, people refer to them as an Indian Lemon Loach.  Goes without saying, that as the staff weren't aware of them, they had no preferential treatment;- they were never pampered with fry food, no special care etc so their survival instincts must have really kicked in! To avoid the other fish when they were tiny fry as well as the vigorous syphoning that the staff do (yes they do, especially when the boss is around!) is amazing. As of June 4th it is hard to judge the age of them, possibly 8 weeks or older (?) and they are now a little over 1.5 cms long. How many eggs and fry were overlooked and syphoned up, we can only guess, but there seem to be at least 5 or 6 young fish , usually under the bogwood but sometimes spotted darting out in this very hectic tank.  They are in fact very prolific egg layers and will often produce well over 100 eggs, which is why Mick Wright (Preston & Dist A.S member) successfully reared over 90 fry and, at a later date, traded some of these in at Aqualife. So, judging from the numbers quoted in other articles about them and Mick's result, it's pretty obvious that perhaps 95% of the eggs/fry were lost! However, it's always great to see surprises like this in any aquarium, as I still get great enjoyment from seeing an unexpected fry suddenly appearing. (In my case, often a "stray" Cory from eggs I've missed). ( My thanks to Aqualife and staff for their co-operation with this article and particularly the photographs). Copyright Text and photos; Ivor Hilton |
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