Despite my love (obsession?) with these fish, they've given me so many headaches and cost me a pretty decent sum of money.
They are like Exodon on steroids - despite being shoaling fish, they are extremely rough on tankmates and have a legendary hatred for each other. Most importers don't like to work with them as they bite other fish during transport. Furthermore, they're very susceptible to bacterial infections so they often arrive bitten up and riddled with columnaris.
To make sourcing them even harder, they're mostly found in higher elevation streams with much lower relative biodiversity than lowland waters, so there's not much else to collect up there other than some more rheophilic catfish (Loricariidae and Trichomycteridae), a few characins and cichlids (which are also found elsewhere).
That being said, when you finally get a stable enough group, feeding time is always epic.
In this video are L. chocoensis and L. bimaculata. Excuse the glass (27 year old tank) and the powerhead in the corner (unplugged, removed after video).
youtube.com
Anyone else keeping these?
They are like Exodon on steroids - despite being shoaling fish, they are extremely rough on tankmates and have a legendary hatred for each other. Most importers don't like to work with them as they bite other fish during transport. Furthermore, they're very susceptible to bacterial infections so they often arrive bitten up and riddled with columnaris.
To make sourcing them even harder, they're mostly found in higher elevation streams with much lower relative biodiversity than lowland waters, so there's not much else to collect up there other than some more rheophilic catfish (Loricariidae and Trichomycteridae), a few characins and cichlids (which are also found elsewhere).
That being said, when you finally get a stable enough group, feeding time is always epic.
In this video are L. chocoensis and L. bimaculata. Excuse the glass (27 year old tank) and the powerhead in the corner (unplugged, removed after video).
January 22, 2024
Anyone else keeping these?
