ah... the big boy is out...here lizard... lizard... lizard... a contest worthy picture a few days later po

[Magnum Man]

my larger lizard type hillstream loach ( maybe a bit longer than 6 inches long ), and been here over a year... on the left side of the pagoda roof... usually hangs out behind the bamboo stalks, at the back of the tank... a reticulated is on the glass, and panda garra sporting quite the orange tail tonight, on the right side of the roof...

 

[gimme30]

Pretty cool to see all 3 together! I'm unfamiliar with 'pangea.' Is that some type of botia?

 

[Magnum Man]

sorry, typo... it's a panda garra... I'll fix the op

 

[gimme30]

No worries! The way they've been changing names I never know what to call anything!

 

[emeraldking]

Pretty cool to see all 3 together! I'm unfamiliar with 'pangea.' Is that some type of botia?

It's not a type of botia. Botias belong to the loach family (scientific name "Botiidae") while garra species belong to the Cyprinidae family.
My botias are just meant for cleaning up and to keep the rate of pest snails and ramshorns snails down at my place. Very functional fish.
The garras that I have are the garra rufa and the garra panda. Both are in separate tanks. They also do cleaning up but leave those snails alone. I also use the garra rufa when a fish has fungus or another skin problem.

 

[Magnum Man]

lizards normal spot in the tank... he likes the bubbles along the back of the tank, and usually hangs out behind the bamboo stalks, so it's a treat, when it's so close to the front of the tank, like in the pictures above...

 

[gimme30]

He really does look like a lizard in that pic!

 

[Magnum Man]

maybe I'm seeing the fish from a new perspective being home during the day... they normally were only viewed at 1st and last light, when I was working full time...

here is big lizard on the roof with a much smaller blue tail...

 

[Magnum Man]

and seems less shy later in the day...
some "fish of the month"pictures for sure...
smile big boy... he is both large, and pretty...

well, he's had enough of the camera, back to the bamboo...

 

[MattW]

Some great pics there! I’m envious of that fish. If only evolution made a species like that grow to a max size of 2” then I could keep one

 

[Magnum Man]

I've got ( or had, as I've not see it in a while, but, there are lots of hiding places in this tank ), a red saddle back lizard loach, that has / had been here for a year, and finally reached 2 inches long, and it's interestingly colored, and patterned, it is just harder to see, being smaller... there are so many varieties, many of which, very little is known about them... part of what makes these fish so interesting... most have seen the reticulated, and admittedly they are very cool, but there are so many more out there.

 

[fishorama]

So many cool loaches, so few tanks. I do miss my botia types but hillstreams are interesting in a different way.

 

[Magnum Man]

trading places, grazing on the pagoda roof, is this large sting ray type... this one hides most of the time... I get to see a lot more fish, being home in the middle of the day

I'm unsure exactly what this one is... It's larger, and less lined than my other Sewellia lineolata... it kind of looks like a Beaufortia kweichowensis, but, while I had a few of those a couple years ago, I've not seen one, in the last year or so... this is a picture of one of those... it looks different enough, I suspect something different...

 

[fishorama]

Nice pics! I'm going to guess your "other stingray" is a different sewellia species, there are a few. I'm not an expert by any means, but they tend to be larger than s. lineolata. Pretty, whatever it is!

 

[Magnum Man]

I think @fishorama ... nailed it... it was likely purchased as a lineolata, as an immature fish, and matured into this... this picture is from Seriously Fish ( which I find lacking in the area of hillstream's ) l, but they call this one

Sewellia sp. 'SEW01'​

Spotted Butterfly Loach​

which I don't recall buying, but again, this family of fish is full of surprises...