Loaches Online Forum

Looking at the pics posted by Nonn of h smithi in their natural environment, I wondered: do h smithi ordinarily school, similar to the way that many botia species do? Sure looks like it from the pics. Or maybe the pics were taken in an area where there just happened to be a concentration of smithis? It isn't easy to get a sense of it in the home aquarium where the space is so limited.

scott

My guess as to why there are so many in the pics would be that the rock on which they are resting is located in a "comfortable" current flow. Most of the homaloptera types I have kept, tend to school very loosely, if at all. They do seem to like the company of other similar fish.

Well, Jim and I are both questioning the ID, because one of Nonn's own pics....



....seems to be the same fish as the "in-stream" pics, most likely a Balitora sp.

H.smithii is this.....



Note great difference in fin overlap and shape of pectorals. Also the frontal origin of the pelvic fin in relation to the front of the dorsal.

Martin.