Miscellaneous oddball fishes with pictures

LA
Mature red hook silver dollar. He's six inches plus tail. One-inch tubes behind him.

LA
Another two-inch lurker with a chunk out of his tail. Go to Misc Oddballs III for more pix.

LA
Traded in as a Pangean logroller. (As my ears heard it.) Looks like a northern hog sucker. ~~Grows to six pounds.~~
Correction from Jim Sours: This is a Pingean logroller, Garra pingi pingi. They come from Eastern Asia and grow to five inches.
Thanks for the help on this, Jim -- especially considering this is such a crummy picture. This fish only knows two tricks -- hiding and jumping out. We'll get a new (better) picture if he stops jumping out. It still looks like a northern hog sucker to me. LA.

LA
Same guy "hiding" in a cave created by leaning a slab against the front glass.

Kevin Bell, January 8, 2007
Dear LA, This is just an addition to the comment made by Robert Nichols on the darter in question (Oddball Section #2).
I believe this is known as a Tessellated Darter. They frequent most lakes and rivers in the southern states. Usually found on sandier or muddier bottoms but will frequent rocky areas when breeding. Usually akin to slower, softer water movement, it has however been found in faster moving rivers during breeding times. In the wild they feast on small water insects and crustaceans, eventually reaching a size of about 4 inches and the size of a pencil (width). If I'm not mistaken they are also a part of the perch family and lack a swim bladder.
Anyway, I have owned two of them before, as usual they did come in a shipment of ghost shrimp and both times neither of the workers knew what they were. In my experience with them, they tend to jump (or dart hence the name) around on the substrate, either looking for food or exploring. The two I had seemed to notice me because they would follow me around and whenever I would look into the tank they would get right in front of my face and look at me, surprisingly they could move their heads a few degrees to either side, almost looking like a reptile at times.
They seemed to be tolerant of water quality, even moderately brackish water...that is not to say that they would last in crummy water very long if one would fail to perform regular water changes. Even though they apparently lack a swim bladder, they would swim their best in order to catch small flakes of food during feeding times. They would occasionally snack on shrimp pellets and algae wafers I dropped for my catfish, they also seemed to like any available live foods such as brine shrimp or black worms.
Like I said earlier, they seemed to like following me and would try to swim around my arm when I was cleaning their tank. Most other times, however, they would be under my driftwood or hiding in a foreground plant.
They seem to get along well with most community fish. I've even had success with them with "medium" sized catfish such as my 2 striped raphaels, and also African brown knives. The only problem I had was that my mom took care of my fish while I was out of town for a month and overfed my bichir to the point where it grew twice its original size (2.5 inches to 6 inches) and was able to catch and eat them, unfortunately I have been unable to find any since. Oh and one last thing, they seem to like the company of other darters, because both of them seemed to stay together most of the time.
Hope this is enough information on these interesting little fish.

A: Thanks, Kevin. That's a pretty good darter report. I'll add your info below the photo. LA

LA
Six-inch flying fox., Epalzeorhynchos kalopterus. Pretty much as big as they get.

LA
Same guy after the severums in his tank decided to start their spawning ritual.

LA
Sold to us an an African phago pike. Obviously a characin. Looks like the barracuda.