Id This Kuhli Loach Please?

[mikev]

A very interesting fellow.

I'm on thin ground now, but I'd still vote for a Myers' and I'd suspect a second female (not certain, but I'd bet even money this way).

(The crazy pattern is unusual but happens, one of mine is equally bizarre, albeit the way the pattern breaks apart is different)

Don't be dissappointed about it being a Myers', they are probably happier this way.
You got two special khulis, it seems!

For a real nice alternative pattern, see OohFeeshy's khuli in the profile page on this forum.

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I'm down to 17, btw. One of the new ones turned out to be very weak, and died last night. The female, however, seems to be doing fine....if she survives another three days, things are nice.

Darn it, I really hope that one day someone figures out what kills new khulis, it seems that almost half of them die either at the lfs or right after one gets them home....

 

[mikev]

Yah know, after looking at your second loach again, I think I do see a greenish tint again.

(I've seen/have several khulis like this---light tint, but no body distortion---and this would mean a female with small number of eggs)

It kinda makes sense: it is much more likely to have a female full of eggs (1st loach) if there are no males present
.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Some of mine have similar markings to the bigger one, I was told by the chaps on loaches.com it's a striped khuli. But TBH, the endless variations and no record of what the different species actuall look like make it nigh impossible to ID some of them... If its breeding you want, the only thing you can do most of the time is get loads and hope you have a male and female of at least one species...

 

[Mustang5L5]

Ok, so 2 females possibly both with eggs.

I went again to see if i could find a few more to purchase but no luck. Seems it's difficult to find kuhli's where i live. The only time i saw some for sale was when i bought the current ones i own. I bought 4 at the time, found 1 dead and only just noticed there were 2 left now, so along the way the last year or so i lost another.

Unfortunately any male kuhli's i get now will be a thin and immature.

 

[mikev]

Ok, so 2 females possibly both with eggs.

I went again to see if i could find a few more to purchase but no luck. Seems it's difficult to find kuhli's where i live. The only time i saw some for sale was when i bought the current ones i own. I bought 4 at the time, found 1 dead and only just noticed there were 2 left now, so along the way the last year or so i lost another.

Large number of khulis die within the 1st week, sometimes all, due to some real problem about transporting them. The safest way to get khulis is not to rush and let them stay at the LFS for 2 weeks....so that the doomed ones die there and not in your tank.... but I guess this does not help you.....

Unfortunately any male kuhli's i get now will be a thin and immature.

No, on two counts.

Firstly, thin!=immature. Khulis (and some other loaches) in a tank tend to get obese from little exercise and a lot of food. Nearly all khulis you see in stores are adults, with unknown portion of lifespan left.

Secondly, it is "Fortunately", IMHO. I suspect that if you buy a male right now and put it into your tank, the result will be two females with little or no eggs and no little khulis. So what is the point of doing it exactly?

 

[mikev]

Some of mine have similar markings to the bigger one, I was told by the chaps on loaches.com it's a striped khuli.

If you got pictures handy, could you show?

But TBH, the endless variations and no record of what the different species actuall look like make it nigh impossible to ID some of them... If its breeding you want, the only thing you can do most of the time is get loads and hope you have a male and female of at least one species...

I think loads would be counterproductive, you really don't want too many of them in one tank. If you don't care whom you breed, you should have four, at most five, most ordinary-looking Myers'. And from what we see with Mustangs', the best approach may be to positively identify a few females and then condition them for a while (a month, perhaps) === isolate them from the males, give them good food, and let them build up the eggs and the sex drive.

 

[OohFeeshy]

If you got pictures handy, could you show?

Uh-huh. Various pics I've managed to mangaged to get are...

Can't remember which pic it was, but as you can see, theres a mix in just these three photos... Once I've bought the other lot I want, I might catalouge all the individuals and compare the markings.

 

[mikev]

OohFeeshy,

I think these are all Myers' (and a couple of blacks, of course).

I do have a very slight doubt about the beautiful fellow on the last picture (i think it is the same one as on the picture you put into the Khuli profile on this forum); but it is very slight.

Possible examples of genuine variations are the Burmese pattern (I don't have any but someone posted images on one of the older threads here) and my "Nobelly" loach (stripes all the way around). Another very interesting khuli I've seen was a big (female?) one with bright lemon color instead of the usual orange/red/yellow; but it unfortunately died right away, still at the lfs (SKUD -- Shipped KhUli Disease).

I've been through a very large number of khulis so far (my lfs gets them by 100s and allows me to choose when the shipment arrives), and variations are many, and most are not significant.

And one more thing to keep in mind: patterns may change. I've seen this happening twice in my tanks. If I suspect this happening again, I'll try to take pics of the process, this is very strange....makes one suspect a disease, but is not, it is a genuine pattern redevelopment.

 

[OohFeeshy]

(and a couple of blacks, of course).

Nope, only one black, he seems to get in every photo... I *think* it was the first picture they said was striped. Going by this diagram (which is by no means true or accurate, but gives a rough comparioson)

The species are
Acanthophthalmus kuhlii kuhlii
A. kuhlii sumatranus
A. myersi
A. semicinctus
A. shelfordi
A. cuneovirgatus
A. robiginosus

From top to bottom. So, I do think that it does look like a striped, but, I don't know. Later I'll see of I can find the one pictured in the 3rd photo, he does have a pretty pattern

 

[mikev]

[I *think* it was the first picture they said was striped.

What do you mean by "striped" exactly? I thought they all are....

TBH, I think that most of the available info is incomplete and unreliable. The chart you have, while a nice one, represents the efforts of a few people who described different specimens found in different rivers. But are they different species or local variations or just patterns they happened to hit? --- no way to know, unless you have specimens from known locations that fit the table and you can show that they interbred or don't.

Incidentally, the 2nd Mustang's Khuli **may** be A. kuhlii sumatranus; the pic matches better and the # of bars is -- by my count -- 12, rather tha usual 11. Probably, not; most khulis seem to be imported from Thailand, not Indonesia. But, if yes, do you know if A. kuhlii sumatranus is a separate species or not?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Striped khulis as in one of the common names for A. semicinctus. I managed to catch the one I mentioned, he wasn't highly happy especially when I took a photo out of the water But I gave them lots of bloodworms, so tis tough.

Its a miracle the first one happened, its very hard to get a photo of a flapping around khuli, let alone when its in a horizontal position This is actually the biggest from my group, I guess he's about 3 1/2, 4".

 

[mikev]

I feel sorry for him already....


OK, here is one of my pattern change stories (the other is different).

I had two totally ordinary Myers' in a 10g tank where I can see them all the time, since early Nov. Totally ordinary means just like on the picture. Got them from a tank lfs was about to scrap because of Ich, not that Khulis had any (not even sure they ever get it), but they were about to be destroyed.

Then (a month later) I noticed that one of the Khulis does have something like an Ich dot--or something like Ich--on top, in the exact middle of the 1st black bar.

Just in case, I treated them again, which made the dot bigger. Now, I suspected fungus---the dot did not look right---but fortunately decided to postpone the treatment.

He (90% sure a male) responded by two more small dots, in the exact middle of the 5th and 6th segments.

By now, all three dots are big, and -- as of two days ago -- I noticed one more, this time in the exact middle of the 2nd segment.

If he continues this way, by summer he will have one in each bar, and resemble yours.

Strange, no?

And, I do have a few khulis in another tank that have the dot pattern on a few bars, but not all --- yours is the best --- are they then hybrids of Myers' with A. semicinctus???

I find this very difficult to believe.