say hello to the little guys

Saw some interesting behavior when I first introduced my new striped kuhli loaches into the tank (a week ago now). Usually the kuhlis seem to just bump past each other without noticing the other one is there- but this time I saw one of the black kuhlis had his body perpendicular to a new striped one, and he moved all down the striped kuhli mouthing its body. Never saw that before- not sure what they were doing but it looked like the resident kuhli was inspecting the new one...

I managed to get a few pictures of the new ones.

You can see why I call this one Tiger! The stripes go almost completely around its belly, from the side it looks solid. There's a black spot with a 'y' shape of orange in its middle, so easy to tell them apart.

The other new kuhli is a bit yellower, and all its stripes are fairly even. Named Sassy. My five-year-old is happy I pointed out to her which is which- she likes to peer around the tank to find each kuhli by name (and count shrimps). Sassy had pale fungus-looking marks on his (her?) head when first came into my tank, but since the extra water changes that seems cleared up.

I'm wondering now what kind of kuhli Albert actually is. His background color is almost white, and he's got spots on his belly. Quite unlike the others.

Here's Albert, a black kuhli and Tiger in the same picture- you can see how different their colors and patterns are.

Closeup of Albert's pattern- his black stripes/splotches seem to have widened so the white in between is very narrow and some are converging. It's interesting.

And here's a shrimp.

Starting to get a little fond of these guys. Managed to count five the other day, so perhaps I have not lost so many as I thought!