Chinese hi fin banded loaches at Fish Story

[thebiggerthebetter]

Chinese high-fin banded shark, Myxocyprinus asiaticus: our main learning has been so far that they cannot tolerate water temps higher than 80-85 F, so we couldn't keep ours as our water gets warmer than that in summers, up to 85-90 F, except the 25,000 gal exhibit, which however is not suitable for small fish grow out.

This is based on a couple attempts of 2 specimen each, ~2"-3". Both times the fish started out well, grew a few inches but by July-Aug would wither away.



This time we have a chiller in reserve in case we need it next summer. We got five 2"-ers from Rod to try again:

 

[Deadeye]

Very cool!
Can’t wait to see them get big!

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Good luck thebiggerthebetter! Tracking this thread will be pretty cool.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Road trip to Predatory Fins, Boca Raton, Florida, USA. Swapping large fish - tropical gar, niger catfish, and oscars - for smaller fish - Lithodoras dorsalis, gulper catfish, black ear shark catfish, Aral barbel, Indo-Pacific tarpon, and Chinese hi fin loaches:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

We have had problems with this batch of 5x. One died early on, after a week or so. Another followed in 2 weeks. Didn't look like anything was wrong, except I couldn't tell if they were feeding and feeding adequately. They all came very thin (their nature) and remained thin.

Rodrigo said they were fed bloodworms at the shop. I was offering a ton of crumbled pellets and finely cut fish. In the end it looked like only one really switched well to this new diet.

Then a third one passed from emaciation it looked like.

Out of the two remaining today, one is doing great, is grown and is plum, but the other is too thin for comfort and hasn't grown much. They mouth through everything on the bottom etc. but it's hard to say what they eat and how much. So I had to transfer some big and rambunctious tank mates, and now hope the sharks will feed better.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Sorry to hear that ?

Maybe you should try feeding algae wafers or something high in vegetable matter? Seriously Fish recommends some should be offered: https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/myxocyprinus-asiaticus/

 

[Redshark1]

These are banned in my country (England) as they could possibly establish in the wild and become invasive.

 

[jjohnwm]

Sorry to hear that ?

Maybe you should try feeding algae wafers or something high in vegetable matter? Seriously Fish recommends some should be offered: https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/myxocyprinus-asiaticus/

Ah, yes...good ol' Seriously Fish...

They list a maximum length of 900mm for this fish...right next to a pic of one that appears larger than that already but has still not even achieved the full adult body form. Most other sources indicate larger maximum sizes, some much larger.

Beyond that, SF tells us the adult fish weigh 40kg. That's almost 90 pounds, and is clearly impossible unless the fish is far, far longer than the measly maximum they ascribe to it.

Do these people even proofread the drivel they put out? They should change their name from Seriously Fish to just Seriously...?

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

Was not paying attention to anything other than diet on that page, but what you describe may be the result of multiple editors to the page failing to keep up with one another.

 

[jjohnwm]

Was not paying attention to anything other than diet on that page, but what you describe may be the result of multiple editors to the page failing to keep up with one another.

I don't doubt it. Explaining why they are unreliable doesn't change the fact that they are. When researching something, if I happen to read something that simply makes no logical sense...the source becomes suspect for all data it presents.