Borneo Sucker Trip (13th June 2009) - Home...

At around 3.30pm we decided to pack and head home. Though the hunting hours is short, the trip is worthwhile afterall. We had indeed explored a new place, which neither of us had ever encounter before, despite my dad who used to travel alot during his working days. The hunting spot was amazingly beautiful. We told ourselves that we must come back to spend at least one night there to experience the wonderful world of nature :)

So back again to the 1 hour ride on rough and bumpy road. Along the way, we did stop by one of the smaller stream to try our luck for Gastromyzon auronigrus. But still none, mostly G. monticola. At that time, it was just a simple tryout catch, so didn't measure the parameters. However, I would like to state that the water temperature is slightly higher, probably around 29°C to 30°C. Anyway it's not accurate, so don't try and set your Gastromyzon tank to 30°C :). But honestly the water there is much warmer compare to our initial hunting spot.

So after failing to collect G. auronigrus we finally decided to head home.

We reached home at around 7.30pm. It was already dark then. So we unload our stuff, and the fishes. I placed the fishes in their quarantine tanks, ate diner, made my first post about this trip, bath, and sleep. LOL......the journey was tiring......haha, and best of all we enjoyed ourselves. And dad just KO after diner......haha. Lil sis, hah! still have the energy to spent some time watching video....of course, she didn't do much accept for scooping the fishes....haha, she told me that she couldn't stop thinking about Gastromyzon auronigrus when she tries to sleep...so the reason to go watching some videos.

Anyway 13th June 2009 is one of the intresting day in our life :)

Photos of G. cornusaccus and G. monticola will be up soon.....stay tune.

Borneo Sucker Trip (13th June 2009) - Water parameters...

Okay, as usual, if anyone reading my blog and would want to know the water parameters of the river which is home to G. auronigrus, G. cornusaccus and G. monticola...here it is:

Temperature: 27.6°C
pH: 7.5
Hardness: 6°dKH (approx. 107 ppm KH)
Sampling time: 11.30 pm
Date: 13th June 2009
Climate description: Drought

Please this is for information purpose only. Parameters may varies during climate change. It is not advisable to comply exactly to the above parameters, thank you :)

30°C for G. monticola habitat? Read more bout it in the next post :)

Borneo Sucker Trip (13th June 2009) - Hunting for Gastromyzon auronigrus...

Part of our main objective of this trip was to hunt the Gastromyzon auronigrus. It was documented that the river we went collecting are home of 3 types of Gastromyzon species, G. auronigrus, G. cornusaccus and G. monticola.

However during this trip we only manage to collect G. cornusaccus and G. monticola. Base on my rough speculation, percentage sighting chance of G. auronigrus, G. cornusaccus and G. monticola in a calm river is around 0.1%, 1.9% and 98% respectively. Haha, honestly, it's quite difficult to tell the difference of the suckers in riffles, especially between cornusaccus and monticola. One can sight an adult monticola easily, but a little difficult to sight the cornusaccus as the cornusaccus is rather a smaller species compare to the monticola and might resemble the monticola juvenile.

On the other hand, I did not even had the chance of sighting the G. auronigrus. That 0.1% sighting chance is based on my lil sis claim that she did saw a G. auronigrus swiming near the river bank, and by the time she wanted to show me, it went into hiding under some boulder. What an opportunity :(

The same goes to the percentage collecting rate. 0% for G. auronigrus, 9.6% for G. cornusaccus and 90.4% for G. monticola. Haha...what an unexpected trip. We thought that we were able to at least collect one G. auronigrus, since my lil sis claim she sighted one........:(

It's okay for me and dad, we will come back next time for G. auronigrus. This time better, we plan to camp there since it's such a beautiful place, so we will have more time to hunt for G. auronigrus. Hahaha....lil sis felt regretted during the whole journey back home for able to sight the G. auronigrus but not able to even collect a single piece.

Dad and lil sis taking a good inspection of what they caught.....G. auronigrus? Hahaha, not a chance :(


Home of G. auronigrus, G. cornusaccus and G. monticola


Very nice river...the forest here is untouched...love it:)

I'll spare the next post for the water parameters.........:)

Borneo Sucker Trip (13th June 2009) - Dry season...

During our journey to our designated spot, we noticed that there's sign of drought. While traveling on the red earth road we saw some small stream were dried up. The trees and grasses along the road were covered with dust and in some part, instead of green plant, they all turn into red, cause of dust from the red earth road. Boy, it must have not been raining for quite some time.

Some part of the river in the national park are dried up


Certain part of the river turned into a pool during the drought

Anyway the drought doesn't limit us to collect some suckers...

Gastromyzon monticola and Gastromyzon cornusaccus

This is the only sucker picture I capture during the trip...I regreted for not able to capture picture and video of them in the wild :(

Find out about the hunt for Gastromyzon auronigrus in the next post...