Unusual Spiny Eel At Wildwoods

[nmonks]

For those into spiny eels, the appearance of Mastacembelus alboguttatus at Wildwoods might be of interest. Some other stuff I came across included:

• Schistura sussanae from Vietnam (oddball loach)
• Opsarius pulchellus - very pretty trout-like cyprinid
• Cyclocheilichthys janthochir - big (20 cm), dennisoni barb-like
• Nandus cf. nandus – very pretty silver/grey and black – not the same as N. nandus.
• Hemiramphodon kapuasensis - AMAZING halfbeak, but needs soft/acid water and tiptop water quality
• Selenotoca multifasciata - one of my absolute favourite brackish fish, utterly gorgeous
• Gobioides broussonnetii

Wholesale Tropicals had some nice stuff in as well, including some *big* brackish water green chromides for £3 each, a steal for anyone with the space. They also had a single Himantura oxyrhyncha, a relatively small (up to 36 cm) freshwater stingray from Asia. Some juvenile humphead glassfish (not seen them so small before), quite a few different bichirs, and (unfortunately) Pangasius catfish. Maidenhead Aquatics in Wembley has some Carinotetraodon salivator at two for £40 or £23 each (such a lot for such a small puffer!) and juvenile Awaous flavus gobies.

Anyway, for Londoners after oddballs, some nice stuff's about at the moment.

Cheers, Neale

 

[DarkEntity]

I paid £20 each for my Carinotetraodon Salivators from Ultimate Aquatics in Fife, bargain if you ask me

 

[Fella]

I need info on green chromides, i mean, how big do they really get? I get such mixed stories about different sizes. Which is a bit concerning, considering I've had one for a while, and he's grown bigger than my archer in the time I've had him.

Still great news for those living in London. I hope they make their way a little bit further north!

 

[nmonks]

Green chromides -- E. suratensis -- get to around 20-25 cm in aquaria. Supposedly up to 40 cm but even the ones in the mangrove pool at the London Aquarium aren't that big, so that's probably the maximum possible size. So in other words a lot like scats and monos and archers -- never quite so big in home aquaria as they are in the wild. The two at Wholesale Tropicals were about 15 cm long, very impressive fish, a bit like a dark green severum.

Otherwise peaceful, schooling vegetarians. Famously, orange chromides (E. maculatus) act as "cleaner fish" to green chromides, and they have some sort of symbiosis in the wild.

Cheers, Neale

I need info on green chromides, i mean, how big do they really get? I get such mixed stories about different sizes. Which is a bit concerning, considering I've had one for a while, and he's grown bigger than my archer in the time I've had him.

 

[Fella]

Green chromides -- E. suratensis -- get to around 20-25 cm in aquaria. Supposedly up to 40 cm but even the ones in the mangrove pool at the London Aquarium aren't that big, so that's probably the maximum possible size. So in other words a lot like scats and monos and archers -- never quite so big in home aquaria as they are in the wild. The two at Wholesale Tropicals were about 15 cm long, very impressive fish, a bit like a dark green severum.

Otherwise peaceful, schooling vegetarians. Famously, orange chromides (E. maculatus) act as "cleaner fish" to green chromides, and they have some sort of symbiosis in the wild.

Cheers, Neale

I need info on green chromides, i mean, how big do they really get? I get such mixed stories about different sizes. Which is a bit concerning, considering I've had one for a while, and he's grown bigger than my archer in the time I've had him.

Thanks for clearing some of that up Neale, the one I have does look like a dark green severum, but he has so many colours, reds, greens, black, light and dark blue. It makes me wonder why people need to breed flowerhorns with them around! I feed mine on standard flake, and the vallis cuttings I take from my other tanks go in the brackish tank, and he usually eats them overnight. He's a bit of a glutton. But then, all the fish he's in with are gluttons as well, puffer, archer etc.

Do you know if they exhibit the symbiosis in aquaria at all? Is it cleaning just like a cleaner wrasse would clean (without going in the mouth...)?

 

[Castellop123]

!

 

[nmonks]

Yes, they do. Or at least, I have a paper here about lab experiments where the fish were kept together in a 440 litre aquarium in slightly brackish water. It's the *juvenile* E. maculatus that do the cleaning. The E. maculatus set up territories (cleaning stations), and the adult E. suratensis "stand on their tails" and turn dark. The E. maculatus do most of the cleaning in the morning and evening but not so much during the day.

Cheers, Neale

Do you know if they exhibit the symbiosis in aquaria at all? Is it cleaning just like a cleaner wrasse would clean (without going in the mouth...)?