Mahseer, Tor, and Neolissochilus at Fish Story

[thebiggerthebetter]

Some pics of our smaller mahseer.


Holandii:






Benasi bottom, IDK the top, probably malabaricus or tambroides from Mike ShookONES:






Holandii again:





Benasi and ?





Supposed malabaricus and tambroides:






Putitora:





Sinensis from Wes:




Tambra:






Sinensis from Wes again:





Sinensis from Mike ShookONES, far:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Smaller mahseer in vid:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Time to count losses for the last few months.

It is more or less official - I can't raise benasi. Second time I tried with the one I got from MikeshookONES ended up to mirror the first try: the fish did well for many months, then without a reason stopped feeding and died in some weeks. Have no clue why but once could have been a fluke and now twice and the same way is a pattern.

9" probably 1 year old or so. Scales rasped off post mortem by tank mates.

I am guessing it could have been dirty sump filter and too high a bacterial count in the water column. I have increased the frequency and thoroughness of the sump cleaning since...

benasi thread: https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/neolissochilus-benasi-at-fish-story.717595/





We've lost our most beautiful mahseer that is the 24" stratcheyi (got from Ivan the Aw3som3 in 2016) due to my stupidity. Several mahseer, most notably the douronensis / Thai rose / soroides pair started bothering our two beluga sturgeon in the 25K, biting their tails, so I had to take them out. I didn't catch the stratcheyi do it but usually it readily participates in such fun activities, so I decided to move all three to 4500 gal.

Regrettably, I netted the stratcheyi first and plopped it in 5 gal of water in a transfer container / cooler. Wife wasn't home to help me transfer and I was lazy to get out of the 25K and release it into the 4500 gal, so I continued hunting for the other two and apparently lost track of time. Half the time it takes a while to chase around fish in 25K, corner them and net them. Long story short, it probably took me about 45 min to catch all three and by that time the stratcheyi, who had been the longest in 5 gal of water, was upside down to my horror. I quickly plopped them into 4500 gal where all came to it and looked good for half a day but then the stratcheyi stiffened up and died. The stress of 45 min in low oxygen conditions was too much even for this almost strongest of fish.

I was afraid too they would jump out while I am under water hunting, so I kept the cooler lid closed too = less oxygen.

No stirring in the cooler = less oxygen. I know. How stupid is that!?

I killed in 45 min a show size and shape blue mahseer that took 6 years to raise.

LESSON: don't be lazy and get out of the pond each time you net a fish to transfer them into another tank immediately!

The douronensis/Thai rose/soroides pair did well but our 30" temensis pbass would attack them both repeatedly over many days, not all the time but enough to stress them and the smaller one died too in about 2 weeks. The bigger survived and is swimming in the 4500 gal now.

Such is my sobbing story of laziness and stupidity. A thought did crossed my mind initially to place them all into 240 gal for the time being but my sometimes unreasonable desire to give each fish the biggest tank possible at any time took the best of me yet again.

24", 6 years old stratcheyi:




The smaller douronensis/Thai rose 18", 6 years old, vultures chewed it up post mortem:

 

[headbanger_jib]

Happens, sometimes we can do mistakes that we know are stupid.

I lost an aimara, I moved it to a bigger tank, the day there was a power outtage.

The lower oxygen coupled with a stressed out fish, I ended up with a dead fish

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Two year update on the progenius (aka jungha) mahseer, which has been doing well in the 25K. I estimate it is around 28"-30" now. Hard to take good pics of it in the large dark pond with glare off the front glass facing outdoors. This is the best shot I got pathetic, but just to prove it still lives:





Same goes for the two putitora of the original 3. They have grown well, around 2 feet now:

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

A wonderful gentleman named Ammar Daniel, a mahseer breeder from Malaysia, approached us on YouTube and sent a pic and a video of Malaysian Red Mahseer along with a great info on these fish.

CY, I told him about you and how I thought you two would have a lot to talk about

Our exchange with Ammar:

TBTB: Thank you for this. Amazing, lovely color. Mine two look just like these except they are smaller, about 14", and not red at all like these are. It makes me feel better, more sure, that I got sold the real red mahseer. I am told that it is quite hard to get them to develop the nice red color in captivity. Would you have any thoughts, suggestions? Thank you.

Ammar: Okay. Firstly you must understand that the Malaysian red mahseer are not same tone of red color because its up to locality river and environment where they exist.

We got 3 types of red mahseer
1. Silver scales; either poor or strong red color in all fins.
2. Above the lateral line the scales contrast to red color, while below the lateral line scales sometimes look silver but when the strong sunlight penetrates through to skin, the scales can be gold shining; red color in all fins.
3. A rare form of 1 and 2 has upper and lower scales contrast to red color; all fins are strong red color.

Type 3 is located in terenganu, also specific to tembat river in lake kenyir area, where 70% population are the most beautiful red mahseer compared to other rivers in Malaysia... In this locality the mahseer have evolved in that specific environment and hence got strong genetic color compared to other rivers.

Let's talk about the factors that bring about a beautiful red mahseer:

1. Genetic color, which is for example the locality of the fish origin is the most important to know because that means the percent of what we want is higher and we are more confident.
2. Natural habitat environment and aquascape.
3. Feed.
4. Water quality.

ok before we go to tips of care about mahseer, i would like to mention about genetic color of mahseer what you must understand.

1. When we talk about red mahseer in Malaysia, we must know that all rivers have a population red mahseer but the genetic predisposition to the best color is not same... First case, there is a big difference between red mahseer in the wild and in captivity - the red tone may be nice in the wild but when placed in a tank the color drastically worsens and it is hard to have the color come back to the same as it was in the wild, and sometimes irreversible and a fish remains with poor tone due to the lack of strong color genetics... Second case may occur where the wild mahseer is again nice and when we put it in a tank, the color is maintained or maybe worsens a little but can comeback to original wild color due to strong color genetics.

2. Silver scale mahseer can never be turned red again, because of the genetics.

Care of red mahseer:

The environment of aquarium must follow the type of wild aquascape, meaning the substrate and features should be the small stone and middle size stone and one chooses 2 type color - orange-brown and little bit gray color.... dont ever add any sticker reflective background.

if aquarium in outdoor must put the aquarium in the sunlight because this light can make the scale and fin tone look better.

if aquarium in indoor must use the tanning super red arowana lamp.


Feed: choose the pellet which got asthaxhantin and cataxhantin; for example i used koi saki hikari color enhancig and saki hikari blood red pellet.

Water quality suggested:

1. Tempurature around 24-26 degree celcius

2. Percentage of clear water at least 80% clear water to maintain the look of tone color mahseer

3. pH around 7.0-7.3

Okay, that's the little bit information that I can share with you... hopefully you got a new knowledge about Malaysian red mahseer and make you more interested...and I hope one day the Malaysian red mahseer can be popular in Europe and America.

my background now is Malaysian mahseer breeder...nice to meet you!



TBTB: Wow, that's great information. Thank you so greatly for this generous explanation! That's a lot of trouble to get nice red color in mahseer With my general heavy load of work, this kind of effort is out of my league... This reminds me of a friend I have in Malaysia too named Cy, screen name Asian Exotics on the MFK forum, he tells me too about these different rivers and their mahseers, Tor species and Neolissochilus species. He collaborates with various fishermen on getting mahseer for his collection and talks just like you about this topic I am sure you two would have plenty to talk about.

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

More. Courtesy of Ammar Daniel:

Yeah i understand must have a little bit of commitment to treat mahseer to get better color... same situation with golden mahseer putitora to get the gold shine.

I have a little more information for you about Malaysian red mahseer. They get a strong red color at 16 inch+ and even better at 20 inch+ when their scales and all fins develop pretty red color and contrast. At this size they can maintain the color and are easy to keep. In my opinion your outdoor pond with glass window is suitable for size 16-20 inch+... In a pond that size, you can see the pretty red color all time, no need for that much work because the color has become stable. This is one of the special traits of our Malaysian red mahseer..

My observation-based predictions that a Malaysian red mahseer has the genetic potential for nice red red color are:

1) at 3-4 inch, there is a strong yellow color in all fins and also a little bit red color in the pectoral, ventral, anal and lower caudal fin.

2) at 7-8 inch, the yellow in the fins start changing to red in ~ half of fins and the scale have gold shine in the sun.

3) at 12-13 inch, there can be strong red color in all fins, some red contrast in the scales above lateral, and the operculum turning to bronze shine.

4) at 15-16 inch, all fins are red, upper scales have red contrast, lower scales turn to gold shine in the sun, head has red contrast.

5) at 20 inch+, color is totally stable....at this size the mahseer collectors will go crazy? when they see them.

Now I am still searching and want buy the Tor putitora with gold scales and strong yellow fins... so hard to find seller of such stock...i heard this stock is only available in India but I've read that majority of putitora sellers' stock doesn't come from India but perhaps from Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, which have population of putitora... Their stock majority doesn't show the gold color we expect and are after when we buy and put that fish in a tank... Normally we get poor red contrast in fins and the scale gold shine is not what we expect when see true golden mahseer... I think it is hard to get the desired genetic stock because putitora has an IUCN status in India

Thanks Viktor for the interested to know about our malaysian mahseer...

 

[headbanger_jib]

This was all such a lovely read.

 

[Asian Exotics]

CY, I told him about you and how I thought you two would have a lot to talk about

Hi Viktor!

The mahseer itch is still within me. Will dive head first once I have the time and place for a new mountain stream (ie. fast current) set up ready. Ammar's guide should be generally what to expect or how to look for one that's genetically wired to look really red. It is still best to purchase one that has acclimatised to its new home fairly well than a freshly caught one. It will be easier to test one's observation and prediction skills ?

Yes, we do have mahseers that range from grey to very red (and very rare too). With too many claiming their fishes to be from Tembat river, a standard guide will surely help. On another type of red mahseers, I have seen pictures and videos of what was claimed to be Tor Sinensis that is red (I was told it can also be grey) with a very obvious lateral marking (not just line). The seller claimed it was from China, but I am guessing it is more to lower part of Mekong judging from the background of the environment the video was taken. But lower part of Mekong can be Thailand, Lao, Vietnam or Cambodia. That is also a stunning looking fish.

And your friend is also right on the difficulty in getting yellow tailed Tor Putitora. Almost all those here have red tails. I have only been offered once an opportunity to purchase yellow tailed Putitora but their prices are prohibitively expensive. I passed because I figure I have seen beautiful Putitora angling pictures of both red and yellow tail, the huge price difference is not worth it (4 times more expensive). To get best chance to maintain the colour closest to those living in the wild, I am still rooting for Thai blue mahseers (both the Tor and Neo versions)?

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

Our red mahseer 15", 2-3 yo, from Wesley Wong via Mike shookONES :