Anyone able to identify fish?

[brontosauruschuck]

To make a long story short, some students at the school where I work brought these poor guys in and now I need to figure out how to care for them. I figured of the online communities I belong to this might be a good place to ask.

[Gwangi]

These are Misgurnus anguillicaudatus (weather loach, dojo loach, pond loach). They're fairly popular aquarium fish and easy to care for.

[stargatedalek]

And they're super well fed from the looks of it! Weather loaches are generally rather slender looking, I actually thought it was a catfish from that first image.

[Halichoeres]

Aw, what cuties!

And they're super well fed from the looks of it! Weather loaches are generally rather slender looking, I actually thought it was a catfish from that first image.

I can see that. I think in this photo you're simultaneously seeing it from above and below the water, making it look fatter than it is.

[brontosauruschuck]

Thank you all so much! Seriously! That was a huge, huge help. I think pet fish are really cool but I don't know very much about them and I had difficulty figuring out who I could ask. I went to Reddit but nobody responded.

[Mirroraptor]

I noticed that there are Chinese characters on the box. Is your classmate a Chinese or Japanese?
Anyway, Loach is a traditional dish in Eastern Asia. People cultivate them in rice fields and empty the rice fields after harvest to capture them.

[brontosauruschuck]

I noticed that there are Chinese characters on the box. Is your classmate a Chinese or Japanese?
Anyway, Loach is a traditional dish in Eastern Asia. People cultivate them in rice fields and empty the rice fields after harvest to capture them.

Well, I'm an English teacher living in China. I don't have classmates because I'm not a student, but basically everyone I work with, including the students, are Chinese.

[Mirroraptor]

I noticed that there are Chinese characters on the box. Is your classmate a Chinese or Japanese?
Anyway, Loach is a traditional dish in Eastern Asia. People cultivate them in rice fields and empty the rice fields after harvest to capture them.

Well, I'm an English teacher living in China. I don't have classmates because I'm not a student, but basically everyone I work with, including the students, are Chinese.

Very sorry! I thought you were a student.

[Duna]

Very nice dojo. I had four of them in my former cold freshwater tank. Their are the best companions for goldfish, they do well in cold water (15-20ºC). They eat everything. In Spain their sale it's forbidden since 2013. They are good at scaping from the tank, put always a lid on it. They do better with a filter, as any fish. When the barometric pressure falls down, they sense it and move a lot up and down, they notice weather changes this way. Mine went crazy before storms. That's why they are called "weather loaches".

I think the one in your pic is a male, but I can't say it sure because the pic is not good. Males have an elongated hard second ray in their pectoral fins and a special area called "Canestrini scute" (sorry if the translation is not ok, English is not my native language).

[brontosauruschuck]

I noticed that there are Chinese characters on the box. Is your classmate a Chinese or Japanese?
Anyway, Loach is a traditional dish in Eastern Asia. People cultivate them in rice fields and empty the rice fields after harvest to capture them.

Well, I'm an English teacher living in China. I don't have classmates because I'm not a student, but basically everyone I work with, including the students, are Chinese.

Very sorry! I thought you were a student.

Don't sweat it.

Very nice dojo. I had four of them in my former cold freshwater tank. Their are the best companions for goldfish, they do well in cold water (15-20ºC).

This is good news. My school amassed a huge amount of pets and have, dispite my pleas, said they are completely willing to neglect them, so I'm trying to figure out how to care for all these animals on the fly, since nobody else is going to do it. Can you also put axolotls and/or turtles in the same tank? That would be amazingly convenient for me.

[stargatedalek]

This is good news. My school amassed a huge amount of pets and have, dispite my pleas, said they are completely willing to neglect them, so I'm trying to figure out how to care for all these animals on the fly, since nobody else is going to do it. Can you also put axolotls and/or turtles in the same tank? That would be amazingly convenient for me.

As someone who has kept turtles you absolutely cannot. Even mixing turtles of the same species is a situational thing. You might be able to get away with loaches and axolotls as I'm not sure how aggressive weather loaches are, but in general axolotls are best thought of as simultaneously super fragile and also gluttonous so not great for mixing with other species unless the sizing is perfect.

[brontosauruschuck]

Thank you. Google has overloaded me with information on this and it's very helpful to get a direct answer. Now I'm off to spend a king's ransom on pet supplies.

[stargatedalek]

Also, if the turtles are young you should be able to mix them with the loaches (and each other) on a temporary basis until they grow larger. Axolotls would still be too fragile to mix reliably with turtles, but the loaches should be tough enough to shrug them off so long as they remain substantially larger.

[Duna]

This is good news. My school amassed a huge amount of pets and have, dispite my pleas, said they are completely willing to neglect them, so I'm trying to figure out how to care for all these animals on the fly, since nobody else is going to do it. Can you also put axolotls and/or turtles in the same tank? That would be amazingly convenient for me.

Turtles definitely no, they could bite them when grown up, they eat fish. And water gets too dirtytoo quick to have fish with them.

I never thought of axolotls, but weather loaches have no "usual mouth", they can't bite, they just suck food (as goldfish), so they are pretty inofensive. My worry would come from the axolotls, which are known to eat each other's limbs sometimes (they regrow). But I'd say that they could not eat a grown up weather loach. And they have no limbs to chew in.