Botia histrionica...one not eating?

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Sanguinefox
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Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 2:23 pm

Botia histrionica...one not eating?

Post by Sanguinefox » Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:12 pm

This may be an odd question to ask but I'm not really sure what is best at this point. Over a year ago I fell in love with loaches. I brought 5 home and they grew up...and it was...lovely. During a move from a 75 gallon tank to an 150, two of my original shoal lost their lives. Left with 3 (an incomplete shoal) I tried to find a source locally for larger fish due to the growth of my bichirs at the time. This never happened, and in the end I ended up with one young loach introduced that survived, and brought home 2 Histrionica (with the intention of going back to get more).

I had hoped against hope that these two larger fish would bring out the character in my remaining loaches. This did work for quite some time as all the fish were happy together. They shoaled, and ate, and slept together. One day there was an accident near the tank, something fell over doing a water change and all the fish darted to hide in one loaction. This set off one of the usually peaceful fish and she attacked the others to make them give her space. Of the two fish hit, one was nursed back to health. One died. I was then down to two yoyo. I the following months I set up a loach tank with the intention of having a safe space for me to grow my loaches up without fear of them being eaten before they reach full size (by now some of my fish in the big tank are big enough to eat juvenile loaches).

I removed some wood that the fish never used from the big tank to put int he 80 gallon, and this set off the two histrionica. They went berserk, began getting very food aggressive and by the end of their rampage they killed off the two remaining yoyo. Since then I have replaced and built up one side of the tank and their rage subsided. Now they have turned inward, hardly ever coming out and while one comes out sporadically to eat, another does not and refuses to eat.

I have been unable to hunt down more histrionica to boost up their shoal as the pet store that got them sold out quickly and never got them in again. I'm at crossroads with what to do. There are 8 loaches happilly living in the well planted heavily scaped 80 gallon aquarium. I consider removing the Histrionica from the 150 and adding them to the 80 in hopes they will be able to have better access too food and be happier in the presence of other loaches.

I also worry however that they may become severe bullies and do to the rostata, and yoyo what they did to their other two loach mates. But the 80 gallon is well planted, and has really good sets ups with drift wood so it's not like they won't have places to hide. I worked so hard to get the 80 gallon loach tank set up, but I fear for the happiness and health of the two lone loaches sitting in my 150 gallon. I want your advice? What do you think I should do? Should I move the two loaches into the 80 gallon? Should they stay in the 150?

This is what the 80 gallon loach tank looks like: Image

The 150 gallon that the two Histrionica are living in look like this: Image though the left has been rescaped just slightly.

Here is one of the loaches in the 150 Image. The other one refuses to be photographed, he's shy, and quite a bit thinner than the other tank mate.

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