Yo yo size

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Theos.dad

Theos.dad

Piranha
MFK Member
Jul 30, 2021
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I got these 2 yoyo loaches at the same time in February. Both were the size of the small one, around an inch. 10 months later and 1 is around 3.5 inches and the other hasn't grown a bit. I know there are runts in all species but I'm curious if this is a common thing for loaches? Anyone had one stay this small?

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I agree it does look like.
This one came from the same tank at the same time and looked identical to the small one until it started growing.

Maybe the wholesaler got them mixed up and sent the little one with the yoyos? My sis in law got three also from the same tank and they all look like the larger one. Very strange little dude ineed. Now I'm even more curious

I see the zebras also get 3 to 5 Inches.
I've had this one 10 months and it may be an inch.

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Yes, I do think you and your sister did get a mix of species. That's hardly unusual, NancyD at Loaches Online has also told me about seeing mixed species for sale that included yoyo and golden zebra among them.

By the way, in order to keep them company, I'd advise to make sure you have at least 6 of each species.
 
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Agree that it’s not a yoyo.
At just an inch or so it’s probably as mentioned a golden zebra loach but it could also be a very young and slower growing kubotai but if it were I would expect the patterning to start to change.(probably already by now after 10 months)
 
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Absolutely agree. After looking the golden zebras seem to all have that same black swipe right across the dorsal and also the 2 dots on the tail. Now I gotta locate more of both of these guys. I think I'll probably move the zebra and start a small group in our 40 gal nano and leave the yoyo here, get more mates for it and see how they do. I appreciate the help guys.
Thank you much!
 
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Fishman Dave said:
but it could also be a very young and slower growing kubotai but if it were I would expect the patterning to start to change.(probably already by now after 10 months)
Click to expand...

Burmese loach was also something I suspected, but I agree that the pattern not changing is something of a red flag and suggestive it's a gold zebra.

Which, since you mentioned it, reminds me that I made a related topic on Loaches Online very recently: https://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48322
It could be useful for Theos. dad if they find they have to distinguish between Burmese loaches and gold zebra loaches when looking for more gold zebras.
 
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Going by that I'm not sure now. It seems like mine does have a wider bar like the Burmese yet at the same time it has the y at the top before the dorsal. I'll definitely have to do some more observing in the morning when the lights come back on.

Is there anywhere you guys would suggest I look to see a good variety for sale?
 
My 2 cents: what the overall pattern is could be more telling than smaller details like the thickness of the stripes. Because the overall pattern shows no signs of even starting to change into the spotted pattern of the Burmese loach even after 10 months (in which time that of the Burmese loach gets quite a bit spotted), and has a stripe shape more reminiscent of golden zebra loach stripes, it's most likely just one of those with thick stripes.

That's comparable to, say, well documented variation in pictus catfish, where the Peruvian variant has much bigger spots than the Colombian variant. For reference, I was coincidentally going to pick up some Peruvian pictus today, and will share pictures of them compared to pictures of my existing Colombian pictus to help demonstrate the known variance in pattern that the same species of wild fish can form and that we may be seeing here.

This thread could also come in handy for me. Because of it I'm not as sure as I once was about the reliability of the thickness of the bars to distinguish gold zebra loaches from Burmese loaches, so I'll have to keep an eye on the bar shape instead (where in Burmese loaches you can clearly see it's slated to transform into spots).

As for where to buy a variety of loaches: your best bet is somewhere that will ship. They tend to have a much wider variety of loaches than most fish stores, unless the fish store where you live is their warehouse.
 
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